CHAPTER 19

In the dark, Hilde tells me an abridged version of her story. Introducing Rue was no mean feat. Hilde keeps looking at him like he’s going to explode or jump for her neck while Rue seems to be giving her the silent treatment. His buzz is more aggressive than usual, and if he was capable of turning around, if he had a face to look away with, I’m sure that’s a punishment he would have employed. Instead, he hums loudly as Hilde tells her tale, drowning her off in parts. I have to relent and put him down on the ground and leave him to his sulking.

“So,” I say in the end. “Let me try and get this straight. You’re here because your job is to steal dwarven treasure—”

“To retake possession of ancient dwarven artifacts of historical and cultural significance,” Hilde carefully interrupts. She’s still eyeing Rue with open distrust. While he sits, buzzing along.

“Right, to retake possession of really valuable ancient dwarven artifacts for your order. And in order to do that your order sent you to participate in a dangerous blood sport organized by Godtouched.”

“Where it was determined that dwarven artifacts would be making an appearance. And it turned out we were right. That bowl is Blodoks Dinasty at least.”

“So we’re in a dwarven dungeon?”

Hilde lets out a little giggle, and then stifles it. I frown.

“What?”

“No,” she says, shaking her head. “We are not in a dwarven dungeon. I’m sorry for my reaction, it’s just… Who could mistake this shoddy architecture for dwarven work?” She sighs, shaking her head a little. Then she notices my expression and looks down. “I’m very sorry, really.”

“Don’t,” I say. “I don’t know a thing about dwarves, it’s true. I thought you lived in, well, in this.” I wave my hand around. “Mines and such. And that you liked to sing. Only you slept in piles of gold and your teeth were supposed to be made of diamonds.”

“Really?” Hilde asks. There’s a sudden dangerous spark in her eyes. “So you think we’re jolly little workers, mining and singing all day long and counting our gold at night? With diamond teeth? Is that really what humans think of us?”

I’m now very aware that all my knowledge of a real, existing people, no matter how recluse, comes from the bedtime stories Dala used to tell me when I was a kid. I blush a little.

“I, hum... Yes?”

Hilde’s glare holds me in place. The temperature in the rooms seems to have dropped considerably. Then she cracks a smile and I realize she’s mocking me.

“Don’t worry,” she says in between giggles. “I used to think humans were as tall as trees and ate dwarves for breakfast. This was before I even know what trees were!” She actually laughs at that.

Her laughter is so surprisingly crystalline that I immediately find myself smiling. I have to bite my tongue to keep it from turning into real laughter.

“Listen, Hilde,” I say. “I’m here looking for this girl, Katha. She’s blonde, has green eyes…” I search for a hint of recognition in her expression.

But she shakes her head. “Can’t say that I have. Sorry. Is she someone important to you?”

Before I can even try to describe the enormity of Katha’s importance, steps drag outside. The moment of levity, of forgetting that we were in a dangerous dungeon, one mistake away from death, vanishes as soon as we hear it. Lowered voices join the steps. A hushed conversation is taking place, though we can’t make out its meaning.

Someone runs down the corridor and away from us.

“Did they circle around already?” Hilde hisses, her voice tense as taut rope.

“It might be someone else,” I whisper.

There’s a pause, then the dragging of feet again, slower this time, uncertain. It seems whoever just ran off left a guard in front of the door.

“Malco,” Rue says, vibrating softly on my shoulder. “There’s a passage just there past the scalies.”

“Shh,” I say.

“I didn’t say anything!” Hilde hisses.

“Not you— look, it has to be them. They turned back for some reason.”

“What about the monsters?” Hilde says. “There should be at least one, here somewhere.

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“I think I may have killed it,” I say, walking closer to the door.

“What?”

I try to think. I imagine one guard outside, well armed, and a runner gone to find the rest of the group. What do they want?

“What if we stay quiet…” Hilde starts.

“The blood trail,” I whisper. “They know you’re in here.”

Voices rise in the corridor outside, approaching. I can distinguish the tall girl’s, Essa, crisper than the rest, giving out orders.

Before anything else can happen, Hilde grabs the torch from my hands and sticks it through the door handle. The very next moment the door rattles but holds fast on the blockage. Flames begin to darken the wood. The latch smacks back down on the other side.

“Locked. Break it open!”

“Good thinking,” I say. “All right. We need… We need a… “

“A way out?” Rue buzzes.

“Yes! Is the pit too deep, do you think?”

“Passage!” he snaps. “Past the boxes! Are – you – even – listening!”

“Brilliant! Keep them busy!” I yell over my shoulder as I dash around the pit.

The crates are piled up precariously on top of each other, the little monsters snapping at one another. I manage to catch a few unaware and kick their crates away, indeed revealing the bottom corner of a passage. But as soon as I do, the rest of the things in the crates turn to me and hiss. There’s no way I’m getting any closer to the crates without getting bitten.

Slam!

The sound echoes through the room. Hilde is pushed back from the door and almost topples into the pit before recovering her balance and throwing herself back against the door.

“Get out here, you coward!” Essa yells.

“They have a ram,” Hilde says through clenched teeth. Her upper body is pressed against the door, shaking with every hit.

A scaly snaps at me, bringing my attention back to the boxes. I dig through the pockets in my makeshift backpack, searching for something that I can use.

Herbs? Not likely.

“Give it back or I’ll take it from your corpse!” Essa’s voice, muffled.

Bandages? For after, maybe. A thought intrudes in my otherwise frantic search for options. Give what back?

The sacks themselves keep getting in the way, the heavy leather coiling around the items and giving my bandaged hand trouble.

“Just club them away!” Rue buzzes on my shoulder.

And release the monsters? Not likely.

Another slam. The door cracks open, light and noise streaming through a broken slit.

The rope itself? Not in this shape, and unknotting it will take time we don’t have.

“Quickly!” Hilde yells.

Slam! Slam!

Think. Think. My mind is filled with buzzing, with noise, unable to focus. I see Essa’s face, precise and determined, as she brought the sword down into Hilde’s side. If I hadn’t found those herbs she would have become a murderer, and who’s to say she isn’t…

Suddenly, the answer is clear. My hands have been inside it all along.

Sacks.

I thrust my hands in as far as they will go to create thick, impractical gloves. It takes two hands to move a box, but they are light, frail things. The reptiles themselves must weigh as much as kittens. They sink their teeth in the leather, but while the surprisingly heavy pressure of their bite is almost too much for my hurt hand, I don’t sense their saw-like teeth.

“Malco!” Hilde yells. I don’t answer, though the shout seems to have created more chaos outside. Maybe they weren’t expecting Hilde to have found an ally. Crates go flying everywhere in my desperation to get away. A few of the beasts break loose after all, wringing their way from the wreckage of their cages. And just like that, the passage has become wide enough for us to pass through.

“Now!” I yell.

Hilde doesn’t need me telling her twice. She bolts down the room with surprising speed for her short legs. Some of the scalies sink their teeth in her but barely manage to slow her down. And then all damnation breaks loose.

The torch finally gives in, snapping in two. The door, partially aflame, flies open. At the head of the still charging ram is Essa, face contorted in a rictus of rage. She only sees the pit when it’s too late. A moment later, the momentum carries the ram too far. She passes beyond the lip of the pit and tumbles down, falling slow as a felled tree, her eyes wide with surprise and shock.

And then a blur of a figure jumps through the crowd and catches her arm, holding onto the ram with the other hand. The two dangle over a precipice that is suddenly filled with the screams of those rushing in to help.

I see the figure, lower half of her face covered with a scarf, face sooty, copper hair partially burnt, and immediately recognize her. It’s Rev.

I step in her direction, but in the same instant Hilde barrels into me, grabs hold of my arm and nearly yanks it out of the socket as she pulls me down the passage. I scream. I want to pull Rev up, to make sure that she’s all right, but then it’s me who’s falling, tripping over Hilde and down a flight of steps we didn’t see in the dark.

We fall sprawled on the floor, dazed. I look up and can see the pit room, three short steps up. The rest of the Challengers are pulling Rev and Essa up to safety. As I stand up slowly, my sister’s eyes find mine across the distance. It seems so stupid, suddenly, that we should end up in different groups, fighting in the darkness for the amusement of Godtouched. But now I can explain and make it all better, we can—

Ding!

A wooden screen slides in front of me, blocking my view of my sister and plunging me and Hilde into semi-darkness. What light there is permeates the very air itself, white and sourceless.

“No!”

I slam the cold surface of the screen with my good hand, screaming Rev’s name, but the only answer is a chirpy voice that seems to come from right behind my shoulder.

“Please state the floor you wish to travel to,” it says. The only other presence in the tight space is Hilde, still in the process of getting back up on her feet.

“Open the door!” I yell.

“You selected level four,” the voice says. “Going up!” it adds in a happy tone.

And then the floor seems to press against my stomach. All of my insides contract as we’re pushed up and I have to hold on to Hilde to steady myself.

The trip lasts only a moment. The room stops with a sickening lurch and the screen slides open.

“Level Four,” says the chirpy voice. “Mutt slimes, laboratory, library, and the Test of Wit. Mind the traps and have a pleasant day!”

Silence.

“Take us down,” I say.

Silence.

“Down! Back to level… Level… Whatever level we were in!”

Silence.

“Malco…” says Hilde.

“DOWN!” I slam my hand on the wall.

“Malco, I don’t think it’s working. I think… It might be a one-trip thing.”

She puts her hand on my shoulder.

“Godsdamnit,” I mutter.

We stay like that for a moment.

“Hum,” unsurprisingly, it’s Rue who breaks the silence. “I don’t want to interrupt, Malco, but did she say slimes?”