He stepped forward and unlocked the door. Rita edged out of the cell with her back to the wall, eying him as if he were a wild animal who might pounce on her at any moment. Devon was a bit cooler, and he nodded to Isaac as he walked out, feigning a confidence I was sure he did not feel. I walked right up to Isaac, close enough that I could feel the heat of his body radiate against my own.
“They’ll figure out that you freed us,” I said. “You could lose everything.”
“No I won’t.” He reached into his pocket, pulled out a couple of small items, and stuck one into the lock. The other he dropped on the floor just beneath it. A faint smile touched his lips. “What they’ll discover is that one of the guards who patted you down did a lousy job.”
Sticking out of the door was one of the tools that Rita had used to try to pick the lock in the sewers. The one on the floor was a broken fragment.
“You’ll find an exit in that direction,” he pointed. “Keep going, and it’ll lead you down to the portal in short order. Bear in mind, the Gate is probably in use right now. How you handle that is up to you. But the security along the way should not be a problem. This place is designed to keep intruders out, not to lock Shadows in.”
I hesitated. We had the codex, so there was a chance we could get home safely. But Isaac didn’t know that. Was he only pretending to free us from prison, while he sent us to our death between the worlds?
Devon voiced my thoughts. “If we go through the Gate without a Shadow to guide us, won’t we die?”
“Or wind up in the wrong world?” Rita challenged him.
Isaac shook his head. “Every person is naturally attuned to his own world, and unlike Sebastian, you four haven’t done anything to screw up your attunement. Odds are good that if you make it across safely, you’ll come out in the right sphere.”
“IF we make it across,” Devon said sharply.
Isaac shrugged. “I didn’t say there was no risk. If you want to stay here instead, no one’s stopping you.”
He walked over to Tommy’s door and unlocked it. The minute the door was open my brother sprinted toward me, and to my astonishment he threw himself into my arms and hugged me like the world was about to end. So I hugged him back just as hard, marveling at the therapeutic power of alien abduction. When I finally drew back I saw there were tears in his eyes. Good ones. “Don’t you ever go off to an alien world without me again,” I told him sternly.
I stood up and looked at Isaac. The gratitude I felt toward him was more than I could express in words.
“Here,” he said softly. “You’ll need this.”
He held out his fetter lamp. I took it. Then he took a small silver disk from his pocket and offered it to me.
The stealth fetter.
I felt my breath catch in my throat. “Aren’t they going to notice if this is missing?”
“They would if it was yours. But this lamp is mine.” A faint smile twitched his lips. “Now that I’m not hiding from my own people, I won’t need it anymore.”
On an impulse, I reached up and kissed him on the cheek. As my lips touched his face I could hear his sharp intake of breath, and I felt a tremor run through his body. I held the kiss for a long second, savoring the intimacy of the connection, then drew back. “I’ll never forget you,” I whispered.
“But I will forget you,” he warned. Pain echoed in his voice. “It’s the curse of my Guild. So if you ever do come back here … don’t count on me for anything. Don’t even tell me you’re back in this world. I may not be the same person who cared enough to free you.”
“Uh … guys?” Tommy coughed. “Maybe we should start moving? Not that I don’t love this place.”
With a sad smile I moved away from Isaac.
“Good luck,” he murmured. “Be careful.”
“You, too,” I told him.
As we turned to head in the direction he’d indicated I patted my little brother on the head. Tommy muttered something about not being a puppy dog and batted my hand away.
He was gonna be all right.
• • •
The last leg of our journey was a short one, for which I was grateful. Between my injured ankle and the various parts of me that had been punched, scraped, stabbed, and mauled, I was nearing the end of my physical reserves. Tommy didn’t look so good either. A week’s close confinement had taken its toll on him, and by the time we reached the place where the tunnel we were following joined the main conduit, I could see that he was straining to keep up.
“Almost home,” I murmured to him. “Hang in there, kid.”
We passed some wards, but whatever power was fettered to them was intended to keep people from entering the citadel complex, not leaving it, so they didn’t affect us. Finally we came to a steel door, bolted on our side. It opened easily. Beyond that was a wide, well-lit tunnel, with glossy tiled walls and a gracefully arched ceiling. It reminded me of an old subway tunnel I’d once seen in New York. And of the ornamentation surrounding the Gate.
We were almost home.
We could hear voices ahead of us now—or rather, the hollow echo of voices, channeled to us by the polished walls and ceiling of the tunnel. It was impossible to tell how far away the sources were. Silently we crept toward them, not even daring to whisper to one another, for fear that the tunnel’s acoustics would amplify our voices. No longer were we the confident kids who had smuggled ourselves into this complex days ago, recklessly defiant and ready to bluff their way through any encounter. Rita and I were visibly bruised and bleeding now, and Tommy looked like one of Fagin’s kids. Devon’s dark skin masked the worst of his bruises, but one of his eyes was swelling up, and it was clear from he way he walked that his right leg had been hurt. One time he lost his footing and nearly went down. Rita grabbed him in time to keep him from falling, but he wound up hitting the wall pretty hard, and the noise of it echoed down the tunnel ahead of us. For a moment we all froze, waiting for the inevitable sound of someone coming to investigate. But as with the creak of hinges in the abbie tunnel, the noise seemed to go unnoticed.
Only that last noise didn’t go unnoticed, I reminded myself. The rats were watching us all the time. But there was no movement visible ahead of us, and though I turned back quickly a few times, to try to catch any pursuing rodents unawares, there appeared to be nothing behind us either. Given that the tiled corridor was straight and smooth, and a line of glow lamps in the ceiling provided fairly consistent lighting, even a rat would have trouble finding a place to hide. But that still left the spirits of the dead to worry about. I prayed that whatever Tommy had done to drive them away from our prison cells would apply here as well.
As we walked, I wondered what Isaac would have done differently, had the Shadows’ pet ghosts been watching our reunion. Did he have the power to control them, like the Shadowlords did?
Soon we could see the stronger light of the main chamber brightening the tunnel ahead of us. I felt a nervous flutter of anticipation in my stomach. Would the arch look any different to us now that we understood its true significance? I reached into my shirt and pulled out the codex. The tiny gold lines were brighter than I remembered, and they seemed to shift position as I looked at them. Like the trembling of a compass needle.
Tommy’s eyes grew wide when he saw it in my hand. Then he grinned. “Very Men in Black,” he whispered.
“Shhh,” I whispered back, and I mimed a smack to his head.
Other than the echo of our footsteps, the world appeared to have grown silent. Whatever discussion had been taking place in the chamber ahead of us was apparently concluded.
I remembered how the grey man in Terra Colonna had left the main chamber as soon as his job there was done, leaving the portal unattended. Since no one would be foolish enough to activate the Gate without a backup team of Shadows and Greys to get him through safely, there was no need to guard the thing when it wasn’t in use. Which meant that if no one was using the Gate right now, the chamber might be empty.
A
s we neared the end of the tunnel we stopped walking, and for a few seconds we all stood very still, listening intently for any hint of movement. But there was no sound. None at all. Fortune seemed to be on our side, for once.
About damn time.
As we entered the chamber, Tommy’s eyes grew wide. I suddenly realized how little he probably knew about this world. All the time that we’d spent running around like headless chickens, struggling to learn about Guilds and Gates, he’d spent sitting in a dark prison cell, alone.
I took his hand in mine and squeezed it. “Keep hold of my hand,” I whispered to him. “No matter what happens to us, no matter how scared you get, don’t let go of me.”
He nodded solemnly and gripped my hand, so tightly that it hurt.
There were three gurneys with sheet-covered bodies on them lined up neatly next to the Gate. Someone had left a clipboard and a pen lying on the stomach of the nearest one, and I had to resist the urge to go over and read the list of names on it. This time I would know what all the titles meant. This time I would understand exactly how each person on that list was helping the Shadows rape my homeworld.
Easy, girl. Stay focused.
Rita and Devon went over to check out the gurneys, just to make sure no one was hiding behind them. We didn’t want to experience another ambush like the one upstairs. Of course, down here there were also a thousand and one dark crevices for people to hide in—we’d used a few of them ourselves, back on our own world—but those were around the periphery of the chamber, not near us. If anyone jumped out at us we’d have time to respond.
Rita took Tommy’s free hand in hers; I could feel him tense up at the contact, but he didn’t pull away from her. Good boy. Devon took up Rita’s other hand. God alone knew what we were about to face, in that void that lay between the worlds, but at least we would face it together.
Trembling, I held up the codex and looked at it. The golden threads were glowing more brightly now, and when I focused my attention on them they began to move. Pattern after pattern took shape within the crystal sphere and then dispersed, each one leaving an impression in my mind like the afterglow of a sparkler. Mandala-like geometrics gave way to fractal spirals, which gave way in turn to clusters of filaments that rippled like wheat fields in the wind. As each pattern formed, it filled my mind, drawing my soul into the same alignment—and as each one vanished it left me briefly disoriented. They were the same kind of pattern that I had sensed back home, when the Shadowlord activated the Gate, but back then there had only been one design. This time there were hundreds, and while I sensed that I was supposed to recognize which one mattered to us, I didn’t have a clue how to do so.
Then, for a moment—just a moment—the threads resolved into a familiar pattern. Maybe it was a design I had used in a painting once. Maybe it was a path I had walked in one of my dreams. I thought back to the thin lines of fire that had followed me in my last dream, recording my path as I walked from world to world—
And suddenly I understood what it was that I held in my hand.
A map.
As if in response to my thoughts, the chaotic swirling within the codex settled down. A single pattern was visible now, throbbing with golden light. The same pattern pulsed within my mind. It filled the air around me, and I embraced it in my soul, studying all its twists and turns. This was the path that would lead us home. Were we supposed to follow it like a road map? Or was it some kind of metaphysical programming for the Gate, which would do the work of getting us from point A to point B? I cursed myself for not having asked Sebastian more questions while he was still with us. Activate this when you step through the Gate, and it will see that you reach Terra Colonna safely, he had told me. Now it was time to test his words.
I looked at my companions. Something in my expression seemed to steady them; even Tommy stopped trembling. Devon took a last look behind us to make sure nothing was in the chamber that we needed to worry about, then nodded to me. I squeezed Tommy’s hand—
—and they came out of nowhere, because that was their Gift: to come out of nowhere. We should have remembered that Gift. We should have realized that Greys could be in the chamber without our seeing them. We should have guessed that all the noise we’d made back in the tunnel would put them on alert, so that they would draw their Gift about them like sorcerous cloaks and wait for us to arrive. But we hadn’t. We hadn’t thought about them at all. That, too, was part of their power.
Grey hands slid out of nowhere, grasping hold of us. Grey fingers squeezed a pressure point in my arm with painful intensity, forcing me to release my brother. Grey arms grasped Tommy and pulled him away from me, while other hands grabbed Rita and Devon. It all happened too fast; by the time I reached out for Tommy, he was gone. I heard him scream my name. I managed to pull away from the Grey who had grabbed me, and I twisted around, but my little brother was no longer beside me, and I screamed. Not in fear, this time, but in fury.
The golden lines were gone now. The arch was gone. The only thing left in my universe was rage—hot rage—an all-consuming desire to hurt the people who had tormented Tommy and threatened my friends. Molten fury suffused my flesh, energizing my spirit and banishing any pain that might have slowed me down. It was exhilarating and terrifying all at once, and I embraced it without reserve, ready to confront these Greys who had dared to attack us, who had dared to lay hands on my family and friends. Never mind that the worst physical confrontation I’d ever voluntarily indulged in was a game of dodgeball in gym class. Never mind that I had no weapon of any kind, and wouldn’t know how to use one if I did.
A mother wolf doesn’t have to be told how to protect her cubs, does she?
I saw that my brother was struggling to bite the Grey who had grabbed him, and doing so with enough ferocity that the Grey was distracted by it. Good. I rushed forward with my arm extended, fingers locked together into a solid spear point of fingernail and bone, aiming for his right eye. At the last second he saw me coming and jerked his head to one side. As soon as his attention shifted my brother took advantage of it, sinking his teeth into the man’s arm, deep enough to draw blood. The Grey cursed and jerked his arm away from Tommy’s mouth, giving my brother a chance to break free. I reached down to grab his hand to pull him to safety—
But then someone grabbed my hair from behind, yanking me back so hard it nearly snapped my neck. With a curse I tried to twist around to face my assailant, but there was a gurney in the way. Pain exploded in my hip as I slammed into it, but I was high on adrenaline by that point and no longer gave a damn about pain. I grabbed the gurney and rammed it into the Grey who was gripping my hair; he lost his hold on me and went flying across the room, blocking the path of two others who had been coming toward me.
Suddenly the whole room was full of Greys. I couldn’t see where Rita and Devon were, but I could hear them fighting. The Grey Tommy had bitten grabbed hold of him again, this time with an arm locked tightly around his neck, and despite my brother’s valiant effort to back-kick him in the groin, it looked like Tommy was about to be dragged away from me. Again.
Desperately I looked about for something that I could use as a weapon. Anything! I thought of the clipboard and pen I’d seen before, but those had been knocked out of place when I hit the gurney. The clipboard had skidded across the floor and was well out of reach, and though the pen was still on the gurney, it had rolled to the far end. Not worth the effort. I needed something that could make a definitive difference in this engagement, that would not only hurt one person, but could swing the tide of the entire battle—
And then, in a flash, I knew what I needed to do.
I threw myself across the gurney, grasping for the pen. The hard metal edge of the table hit my abdomen with a force that drove all the air from my body, and the gurney rolled out from under me and nearly sent me crashing to the floor, but my fingers successfully closed about the pen, and that was the only thing that mattered.
Staggering to my feet, I looked around for Tomm
y. There were two Greys holding onto him now, trying to pin down his limbs as he struggled with the ferocity of a maddened wildcat. I ran toward them. A Grey grabbed me by the arm, trying to pull me back, but I jerked loose from him and just kept on going. No one was going to stop me from getting to Tommy. No one. As I ran I took aim at the Grey who had the firmest grip on my brother. I don’t think he saw me coming. Or maybe he did, and he just didn’t think I could do any meaningful damage to him. After all, I was just some poor girl from Terra Colonna, trying to punch him on the side of his head, while he had a teenage wildcat to contain.
I stabbed him with the pen as hard as I could, putting the weight of my whole upper body behind the blow. It hit the side of his neck with a sickening force and slid into his flesh like a fork into a Christmas ham. A gush of hot scarlet blood told me that I’d hit my intended target—his carotid artery—and I yanked the pen out hard, jerking it toward me as I did so, to open the wound up as much as possible.
Blood spurted from the hole in his neck with such force it didn’t seem real. But it was real. It was horrifying, too, and for a moment I couldn’t take my eyes away from the gruesome sight. The wounded Grey reached up to his neck in panic, clamping a hand over the opening as he fought to keep his lifeblood from spurting out of his neck. One less hand holding Tommy. My brother sensed the opening and kicked out with all his might. He hit the wounded Grey on the inside of his knee, collapsing his leg, and the man released Tommy as he fell to the floor. Blood was splattering everywhere.
Now the Greys next to Tommy had to make a choice: either attend to their comrade and try to keep him alive, or risk his bleeding out on the floor while they tried to control my brother. For a moment the whole world seemed frozen. Then the Grey holding on to Tommy let go, kneeling down by his comrade’s side. Another grabbed a sheet from the nearest gurney and started tearing off a piece of it. A third one pulled a small black crystal out of his pocket and did … well, whatever grey people did with small black crystals while their friends were bleeding to death on the floor. Then someone yelled, “Man down!” which was exactly what I’d been hoping for. For one precious instant all the Greys looked to see what the emergency was—and in that moment I grabbed Tommy and started running with him toward the Gate.