Pearce’s icy eyes twinkle with amusement. “You’ll … what? Write a poem about it?”
“Absolutely. It’ll be called ‘Ode to a Smashed Face,’ ” I quip lamely, trying to hide my alarm.
“Ah, yes. ‘Mano a mano,’ ” Pearce says mockingly, making air quotes with his hands, then pauses. “What do you say, Whitford, still up for a little fight to the death?”
“Uh …,” I stall. A breeze wafts in the smell of the sea-water behind us, but I can think only of the giant’s skull grinning up from the bottom of the harbor, and it makes me queasy.
Wisty shoots me a look of alarm and disapproval. This is so not what we’re into, but I feel backed into a corner here. And, though I’m ashamed to admit it, there’s a tiny, dark, sick part of me that wonders if I could actually do it.
I nod at Pearce uneasily.
“Whit!” Wisty protests, and I try to convey What else am I supposed to do? with my eyes. I glance around at the eerie setting — the demolished buildings, the abandoned path, the waves crashing against the shore again and again like they have for millions of years. Apart from homeless plague sufferers squatting in the doorways of half-fallen buildings, there’s no one around. No one else to bear witness. No one to hear me beg for mercy.
Maybe I can just knock him unconscious long enough to get out of here.
“Brilliant. Rency …?” Pearce looks behind him.
The biggest goon of the bunch steps forward and nods, cracking his knuckles, and I swallow hard. He can’t mean …
“Wait, are you serious? I meant you against me, Pearce. What kind of coward has a guy twice his size fight in his place?”
“Oh, this isn’t about courage at all, Whit. It’s much bigger than that. I’m interested in seeing what you can do. A test, if you will. As in, to see if you can not die.”
Chapter 30
Whit
THE GIANT AND I circle each other, my mind racing to come up with a not die plan.
The truth is, the odds aren’t exactly in my favor.
I’m a pretty solid guy, and I’ve gone toe to toe with many a gargantuan thug during football (often called foolball, the way we played it, since it was such an insane version of the sport). But Rency is built like a bulldozer, with his veins popping out of his thick arms like ropes. Even when he crouches down, I barely come up to his chest.
Rency has a glint in his eye, and he looks around at his bros, who all start laughing, and a knot forms in the pit of my stomach.
It’s quickly replaced by a sucker punch from the giant that leaves me gagging and doubled over.
Then a knee explodes into my chin, a clublike fist spins me around like a top, and a metallic taste fills my mouth. Through double vision I can just barely make out my sister’s anguished face.
Pearce looks disappointed on the sidelines, as if he’s about to lose a bet.
Then something happens that I can’t quite explain. Something clicks, and a knowledge, an understanding, a power, is unleashed within me.
I slide forward as if following some secret choreography, jab my left fist like a thunderbolt to connect with Rency’s chin, cross for a body sack with my right hand, then spin out of the giant’s reach.
Jab, cross, left hook, pivot, low jab, spin, wham! My body moves without my direction, anticipating the man’s every move and applying advanced hand-to-hand-combat techniques I’m sure I know nothing about. As my firsts connect with his jaw, then his temple, then his kidney, it’s like I’m standing outside myself.
I feel furious. I feel powerful. I feel invincible.
I feel … out of control.
My arms are incredible deadly weapons of steel that Rency doesn’t have a fighting chance to fend off. His face is practically roadkill, and his left arm is hanging at a weird angle from his body, but I can’t stop.
As my boardlike hand connects with the giant’s kneecap, I’m relieved as Rency finally goes down like a rock, his face distorting into a mask of pain.
He’s not dead, but it’s over. I look down at my fists, unable to comprehend what just happened.
Pearce steps into the circle. “Loser.” He scowls, putting his hand on Rency’s mammoth square head, and the giant crumples, the two empty eye sockets of his skull gaping up at us.
My stomach churns. I am never going to get used to that.
“Well done, wizard,” Pearce says, the jovial tone returning to his voice. I tense, understanding the underlying threat. “That was certainly an entertaining little act you put on for us. Unfortunately for you, your sister is the only Allgood The One really needs. Since she is The One With The Gift, you are … what’s the word? Expendable.”
Pearce bounds, catlike, and before I can direct my newfound defenses his way, his deadly hands are gripping the sides of my head, searing into my temples.
The world burns bright, then shatters.
Life rearranges itself into just two words, flashing in bold, blinking letters across my consciousness: stop and pain.
It’s … excruciating. My eyes roll back but snap open to punctuate each new bolt of agony pulsing through my body. I see: one of Pearce’s icy blue eyes, squinting; the top of a tree, its bare branches clawing at the dismal sky; Wisty’s slender fingers across her mouth, holding back a scream; a white-hot, blinding light.
My brain is a fried egg that can’t seem to process anything, a short-circuiting mass of nerves screaming for this experience to end.
But it goes on. And on. And on. Why isn’t it over yet?
My vision comes into focus again just long enough for me to see the shocked look on Pearce’s face, and then his features harden with determination again.
He leans forward and squeezes my skull even harder. My jaw is clenched tight enough to grind steel. I grasp at his fingers, frantically trying to rip them free, and I feel my legs buckle, my knees smashing into the hard ground. I wonder vaguely if other bodily functions have given way as well, but it’s a fleeting thought as my entire being is immersed in another explosion of anguish.
I have a hazy understanding that that awful sound — that shrieking, that brutal, animalistic howl echoing off the buildings and drowning out the waves from the harbor — must be coming from me.
How am I still alive?
With this realization, this glimmer of hope, I focus through the physical pain, somehow numb my senses, and concentrate every effort on shutting out the energy flowing into me, pushing away the blinding light, healing. But still the pain throbs, and I’m done for, I can feel it, the life leaking out of me, my systems shutting down, when …
Abruptly it stops. The pain. The dying. All of it.
Pearce screams, clutching his head as I had only moments before, and staggers backward, collapsing onto the ground in a dead faint.
At that instant, nausea overtakes me, and I spend a moment retching on the ground, black spots dancing in front of my eyes. When I can see straight again, I wipe off my mouth and sit up, trying to focus on my surroundings.
The giants are edging away from me with baffled, horrified looks on their faces, and my sister’s mouth hangs open, her expression a mixture of shock, concern, and victory. Tears are streaming down her face.
I’m nursing the worst migraine in the history of headaches, but I’ve still got enough brain matter left to understand this simple fact: for maybe the first time ever, Pearce’s skull trick didn’t work.
What does that mean? I wonder, right before I black out.
Chapter 31
Wisty
“WHIT? ARE YOU alive? Whit!” I’m shaking my brother’s shoulders violently, trying not to get hysterical while I’m alone with a dozen bewildered giants and two passed-out wizards. Whit’s fine, I tell myself. He looked okay, or relatively okay, right before his eyes rolled up into his head.
Wake up, wake up, wake up, I urge silently. Wake up before Pearce does.
I eye the handsome psychopath sprawled on the gravel. His hard features look softer, almost gentle, in his unconscious sta
te.
Whether as a result of my telepathic begging or not, my totally ridiculous, irresponsible, admittedly awesome older brother finally stirs, his eyes fluttering open. I don’t know whether to hug him or smack him, but he’s not registering my shock/awe/relief anyway. He’s preoccupied with something else.
“Is that —?” He squints, looking past me.
I turn to see Mrs. Highsmith, our parents’ longtime friend, standing just behind me, looking grand in an extravagant hat and an impeccable bloodred silk suit.
The last time I saw her she was pressed up against her ceiling, being tortured by The One until her eyes bulged out of her head. Yet somehow I’m not surprised to see her now — she’s that kind of lady.
“You silly children! Out here without proper coats!” she scolds, seemingly unaware that Whit’s covered in blood, there’s an unconscious guy on the ground next to him, and we’re surrounded by confused, brawny bouncers. Is the dotty-old-witch persona an act? I have no idea; she likes to keep us guessing. “What would your mother think? And I’m supposed to be looking after you!”
She hasn’t exactly consistently lived up to that task so far in our sad tale, but I have to admit, she’s gotten us out of a couple of jams with some surprisingly powerful M, and I’d bet she’s got another few tricks up her designer sleeve. You know those teachers you think are totally kooky and weird but whom you actually learn the most from in the end? Well, I’m hoping that’s how this turns out.
Mrs. H. glances over at Pearce, who seems to be regaining consciousness. “Tsk-tsk,” she clucks. “I knew that one was a bad apple from the start. What a temper! I expect he’ll be a bit crabby when he wakes up, hmm?”
She squeezes our hands, turns abruptly, and commands, “Better run!” We stumble after her, but even in heels the old witch is way faster than we are.
Chapter 32
Wisty
MOMENTS LATER, WE’RE sitting in Mrs. Highsmith’s new kitchen in her new apartment, since her last apartment basically had a tornado hit it — a tornado courtesy of The One Who Is The One.
Where exactly is her new place, you ask? I’m not quite sure, but from a glance out the window, I’d say if she’s trying to blend in with the New Order drones, she’s doing a good job.
How did we get here? I can’t exactly tell you that either. All I know is that Mrs. H. took off ahead of us, the world seemed to cave in on itself, the laws of physics reconfigured, I felt totally motion-sick, and the next thing I knew, I was sitting on a barstool and Mrs. H. was asking me to pass the witch hazel.
I feel like I’ve been playing with a light socket, and Whit’s fuse looks seriously blown, but when I glance up at Mrs. H., not a hair is out of place on her gray head, her suit remains perfectly pressed, and she’s still clicking around in those impossibly high heels.
Typical.
Mrs. H. is stirring a brew of the foulest-smelling business you can possibly imagine — like a marriage of sulfur and sewage that is going to produce some truly rank offspring. I back away from the stinky slop and join Whit in taking in the surroundings.
Her new apartment isn’t homey and welcoming like her last place was; I guess to live among the N.O. elite, you sacrifice space and personality. She’s got a red-clad doorman and a depressing but striking view of the Capitol building from her fifteenth-floor window.
She has kept some of the key things from her last place, though, and they don’t exactly add to the feeling of roominess. The walls are crowded with banned art, and sculptures lean in doorways, just like I remembered. There are pathways carved out through the litter, but so many musical instruments cover the floor anyway that someone’s going to break an ankle. The woman has some real hoarding issues.
And books. Stacks and stacks of books, everywhere. Jockeying for space on bureau tops, tipping over on coffee tables, piled in swaying mountains on the floor. Even if I didn’t get straight As, I always loved to read, and now that just about every single book has been banned, the pull is even stronger. I feel almost tender toward these tomes. The One has taken away our power to learn, grow, imagine, and escape through words.
Why didn’t we fight harder to keep it before it was torn away?
I pick up one book gingerly and brush off its dusty cover.
“The Cemetery Book,” Mrs. H. says over my shoulder. “Terrific choice. Plenty of great wisdom in that one.”
“Yeah, like what?” I laugh. “How to avoid dying? Because that’s some advice I could actually use.”
“Well, yes, and that you shouldn’t fear the dead,” she says, looking at my brother eerily. “The dead, like all of us, have … limitations.”
She says it in that weird voice she uses to convey Greater Knowledge. I roll my eyes. Mom would probably smack me, since she said Mrs. Highsmith was here to help us, and anyone who can duke it out with The One Who Is The One and hold her own (or at least not get killed on the spot) is one tough witch. Still, can I just say how sick I am of adults doing the wink-and-nod charade, like, Not until you’re older? I mean, we’re supposed to be the children of the Prophecy who change everything. Any advanced knowledge would be pretty freaking helpful right about now.
She turns to me. “And, Wisteria, you would do well to remember that wits, courage, and compassion are the keys to survival.” Her eyes sweep the room, sparkling. “And music.”
I nod. Now that I can relate to.
On Mrs. H.’s command, rock music pours into the apartment, and she starts to shake and sway, the beat taking over her muscles. She stirs the pot as she moves, the gruel sloshing over the sides.
“I remember every song I’ve ever heard, every note!” Mrs. H. shouts over the music. Then she frowns. “Well, almost every song. Of course, there are notable exceptions. Anything by the Cumin Girls I sort of choose to forget, for instance.”
When a familiar old ballad blasts through the room, I join in.
“Oh yeah!” I shriek. “Turn it up!” I look around, but I can’t seem to locate where the music is coming from.
Mrs. H. shoots us a shy smile and taps her ears, and the volume increases. “Never forget, lovelies, the music comes from within.”
I shake my head at the old adage, but I have to smile. She’s a fruity old witch, that’s for sure, but she’s right. She’s always been right. Suddenly I’m filled with the same feeling I had just once before, when performing onstage in front of thousands of Resistance supporters at the Stockwood Music Festival, amped by a wall of speakers created with my own magic. I shiver. One day I’ll get back there.
Maybe Mrs. Highsmith and I have more in common than I thought.
My brother takes her hand and whips her around the kitchen like they’re at some kind of ball. After a minute she turns to stir the soup, and Whit grabs my arm, laughing. We spin round and round to the familiar tune, and when we finish in a dip, laughing, Whit’s eyes are shining.
“That was Dad’s favorite song,” he says, breathless.
“Yeah.” I sigh, eyeing one of Mrs. H.’s guitars longingly. “I really wish that he’d lived to see me rock the socks off the New Order.”
“Had lived?” Mrs. Highsmith raises an eyebrow. “Oh, children, you didn’t really believe they were dead, did you?”
Tears well in my eyes instantaneously. The hoods. The crowd. The smoke.
The awful smoke.
“What do you mean?” I demand. “Are you claiming they’re … alive?”
“Well, they’re alive for now,” the old witch says. “Barely alive. Alive, as in struggling to breathe air in and out. As yet unextinguished, if you will.”
“Wisty, don’t believe her,” Whit says, jaw set. “I saw it with my own eyes. I watched them get … executed.”
Mrs. Highsmith laughs her musical laugh, and it looks like Whit might actually strangle her.
“But, darlings,” she says lightly, gesturing toward the shiny surface of the cooking pot, “see for yourselves.”
My brother hangs back, unbelieving, but I’m unable
to stop myself from bolting forward. At first I can’t see through the salty tears, but I rub at my eyes, and there, on the lid, are two bent figures with sunken eyes and hollow cheeks, standing near water.
Mom and Dad.
Alive!
Chapter 33
Whit
A LITTLE CRY escapes Wisty’s mouth, and I rush forward to join my sister.
My parents seem to be standing near a river, waiting with a lot of other people. They are emaciated and as pale as paper.
“Mom!” I shout. “Dad!” Their faces waver like an image caught in steam.
Wisty looks at me, her eyes pleading. “What are they doing there? Those don’t look like New Order soldiers —”
“Dad, where’s the river? Tell us where you are!” He doesn’t answer, so I turn to Mrs. H. “Is it in the capital? Do you know how to get there?”
“How do we find you?” Wisty asks, her hands gripping the sides of the lid.
Mrs. Highsmith’s kind eyes look at Wisty, then at me. “The river is in the Shadowland, of course,” she says gently. “Where else would it be, lambs? That’s where the river has always been, where people cross over to the other side.”
I grab Wisty’s arm, ignoring Mrs. H.’s ethereal BS for the moment. “We can get there. We just have to find a portal to the Shadowland, and we can bring them back. I don’t care about the risks, I don’t even … Wist?” She isn’t listening to me, and I follow her eyes back to the image of our parents and see why.
Mom’s eyes are looking right into hers, and she’s shaking her head in terror. “Stay away!” her lips mouth at us in her gaunt face. “Promise not to come here!” she wails. “You. Must. Not. Come.”
Dad steps behind her and puts one hand in the air like a stop sign. He looks about a hundred years old, and the gesture seems to zap the last of his energy, but his eyes are fierce as they lock with mine. “I forbid it,” he says, and suddenly I feel tiny, like I’m four years old again and asking to ride our neighbor’s bike. Dad’s eyes blaze inside his gray face, and just when I’m about to cry out to him, my parents disappear.