CHAPTER 23

I rush to Edd’s side. I’ve never seen an arrow wound, but I was there the time Mildred the carpenter’s wife fell off a tree and a stick went through her leg. Broadly the same principle, surely. I hope.

Edd’s eyes are scrunched up in pain and Tale is in the process of losing the coolness and collectedness that kept him in charge all this while. He calls out Edd’s name over and over again in increasingly desperate shrieks, never stopping to realize that his brother is trying hard not to lose consciousness. I’ve seen Dala deal with this sort of situation before. Mostly, confidence and a firm voice will do the job.

“Tale,” I say, trying to inject my voice with all the authority I can feel at the moment and some I definitely can’t.

He ignores me. Crying, blubbering, cradling his brother. His people have surrounded us. They’re standing wringing their hands, not knowing what to do. Things are quickly running out of hand. Well, when confidence wouldn’t do, Dala was forced to employ a different weapon. Surprise.

Slap!

The smack brings silence. Tale touches his cheek with the tip of his fingers, too stunned to speak. He looks at me and gawps like a fish in need of air.

“Your brother will be fine,” I say, quickly filling the silence. “The arrow didn’t cut through anything essential, the tip went all the way through, and we have just enough herbs to heal the wound. He won’t be fit to fight just yet, but he’ll be fine. He’ll even walk out of this room with you if he has enough time to rest. But you need to take control. Do what you’ve been doing. Lead.”

Tale nods once, slowly, then more vigorously. He carefully sets his brother’s head on the floor and then stands and turns to the boy that carried Edd inside.

“Well, you heard him. What happened?”

“I—I’m not sure,” he stammers. “I was walking down the corridor with him, already in sight of the Floating Room, and then there was a clatter, though I didn’t see what it was. Next thing I know, Edd’s got an arrow in his leg and he’s clinging to me, and we’re…”

“Was there an arrow in the room that we didn’t know about?” Tale asks. “It’s possible—”

“No,” Edd says through his teeth. “The arrow was shot from the corridor on the other side. I saw the shadows. The noise you heard was the first arrow. It missed.”

“Did you get a good look at them?” I interrupt before Tale can butt in. “Were there girls with them?”

Edd actually opens his eyes to shoot me a look of pure bewilderment. Then he shrugs. I nod and go back to work. It would have been hard to see anything at that distance with furniture dancing in the way, but I can’t shake the intuition that Rev is on the other side of that room. Her group was the only with access to the elevator.

I find that I can’t snap off the arrow shaft with my hand in this state, so I get Hilde to help me. Edd bears the pain with nothing but grunts, though I know it can’t be comfortable to have an untrained person break something that’s attached to your leg. When that’s done, the shaft comes, we pour water on the leg to wash it and then apply herb paste on the wounds. I take the chance to put some on the cuts in my hand. They won’t fix it, but they might stop the bleeding.

While I worked, Tale and the unmutated boys left the room to make sure we weren’t about to be attacked. Tale comes back alone at a jog, the others left as sentries.

“They’re not shooting anymore,” he says. “Not even when they saw us. But they’ve also not gone into the Floating Room, though I don’t blame them. The bodies have been torn to pieces.”

He passes his hand through his hair and kneels next to his brother.

“Is he going to be all right?”

“Hungry as hell,” Edd mutters. “But the leg is good. It doesn’t even hurt anymore, it’s just itchy.”

Tale signals for someone to bring him food; the same dried rations I found. I realize how thirsty I am all of a sudden, and someone extends me a waterskin. The water wipes the dust from my throat. I have to stop myself before I drink too much, and then pass it on to Hilde.

Edd is already sitting up, munching on his food. He catches my eyes with a glance, and opens his mouth to speak.

The sound of steps running down the corridor interrupts us. The guard boy appears in the dim light.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

“They want whoever’s in charge,” he says. “They say they want to talk.”

*

Tale forced Edd to stay behind and recover, but he took his suggestion to use one of the library’s worktables as a shield.

Two of the boys set it upright in the corridor leading to the door and then we all bunch up behind it and push until we’re close enough to the Floating Room for occasional bits of wood to rebound our makeshift cover. Ridiculous, sure, but safer than being out in the open.

I peek into the room. The remains of the Challengers are still drifting through the air, imperturbable except now a few of them are devoid of limbs or features, reduced to unrecognizable lumps of flesh. The trap has certainly gotten more macabre as time went on, so I don’t blame the people clustered in the opposite corridor for not taking their chances inside.

“There’s a bunch of them,” Tale says.

“Are you the leader of your group?” asks a voice. I can barely make it out over the din of the wooden furniture cracking and snapping against the walls and then sending splinters all over the room. But by the tone and the edge I know it’s Essa.

“I am,” Tale says. “Are you Challengers?”

“We are,” Essa confirms. “Just like you. We would like to ask—”

“Why did you shoot one of us?” Tale shouts.

“What?”

“Why. Did. You. Shoot?”

There is a pause while Essa, presumably, confers with her party.

“Mistake,” she yells eventually. “We were overzealous. We hope we didn’t hurt anyone.”

“Well, you did,” Tale says.

“That is… regrettable,” Essa answers. “The responsible will be punished.”

There is a minute when nobody speaks and the only noise is the sudden crunching of furniture. Our barricade is continuously pelted with little pieces of it. A porcelain plate flies over our heads and crashes into the passage behind us.

“We are looking for a thief,” Essa says eventually. “He might have a friend.”

Tale looks back to me with a questioning look. I shrug. For a moment, I truly have no idea what she’s talking about, but then I look down and see Hilde’s abashed expression. I elbow Tale and whisper in his ear. He’s surprised, but does ask I ask.

“We have them.”

Essa answers just as a big piece of furniture smashes against a corner of the room, drowning out her words.

“What?” says Tale.

“They. Stole. From. Us.”

A horrible crunch sends bits of furniture flying in all directions. A cascade of crashes follows, making conversation impossible.

“What did you take?” I hiss in Hilde’s ear.

Her expression turns to stone.

“I have no idea what you mean, Malco.”

A large piece of wood smashes against our shield-tabled and nearly topples it.

“Hilde!” I snap.

She rolls her eyes and reaches into her pocket. Her fingers uncurl to show me a spot of dazzlingly bright green. A green gem. An emerald as large as a robin’s egg. For a second I think Hilde took the medallion from me, but then the truth sets in.

“You took the emerald before they took the cup,” I say.

“Yes. It’s—” Hilde begins with a pleading look in her eyes.

“—dwarf work, yes, I thought it would be.”

“I know I shouldn’t have,” she moans. Her voice seems strained. “I ran with the goblet, but I took the emerald out before they caught me. It’s what you saw me puking. Maybe it was stupid, but they kept joking about it, that it would buy them each a house, that they would wear silk and drink beer from the thing and—"

“And now they’re after you,” I finish.

She nods, morose.

“Hilde, you idiot,” I say quietly. “They’re not after you for the riches. You realize what this is, right?”

“It’s a key,” she says. “To the Silver Door.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

At least she has the decency to look ashamed.

“I was going to.” She raises her head to face me, and I can see how important it is for her that I believe her. “If they hadn’t shown up now, I would have told you, but…” she shakes her head. “It’s not right, Malco. It’s not right that they get to use the work of my ancestors for their games.”

Nothing about this is right, I want to shout. Nothing about dying for entertainment, about sending kids through portals for, for…

“Take it,” she presses her hand into mine. I can feel the coldness of the stone against my palm. “I don’t trust myself around it.”

The look in Hilde’s eyes is resolute and demanding. I have no trouble grasping its meaning: she’s strong now, ready to do what’s necessary, but that won’t be true forever. The emerald slips into my pocket. But something else slips out.

“Here.”

The medallion flashes briefly gold in the candlelight, the emerald fitted into its center. Hilde can’t contain her amazement as she accepts it.

“I should have been honest with you too,” I say. Then I stand. A plan is beginning to take shape.

Band together.

I pull on Tale’s shoulder and say something else in his ear. He frowns, but nods.

“How about we talk somewhere we can hear each other?” Tale yells.

There is an instant of silence, and then Essa returns the shout.

“Perhaps it – if – allowed – collect our prisoners.”

We lose a few words over the din, but the meaning is clear.

“We have a few terms we’d like to discuss. Compensation, for one,” Tale says. He looks back at me and shrugs. “We need to speak calmly.”

“Agreed – was about to invite you—”

“Two messengers meeting in the middle of the room,” Tale interrupts.

This is my plan and I can tell Tale isn’t completely comfortable with it. He’s the one who’s been keeping people from going into the Floating Room, after all, and now he’ll have to outright send one in. He looks worried. Nervous.

“All right,” Essa says. “If you assure me that it’s safe, I’m ready when you are.”

I grab Tale’s shoulder and whisper in his ear again. This time he shakes his head no.

“We’ll send someone else,” he says. “Hells, I’ll go. You’re skilled in healing. If Edd… If something happens, we’ll need you to—"

“I know someone there. She can help us, but only if I can get her to talk to me.”

Tale’s mouth curls in distaste.

“You wouldn’t be trying to run away and join them, would you? Malco, we need you. My brother needs you.”

“I’m not going anywhere. I just know that I’m the best chance this doesn’t turn into a bloodbath. They can just shoot anyone else we send, but me… They won’t.”

Tale doesn’t answer right away. His quick and clever eyes stay fixed on me. I’m painfully aware that I’m surrounded by his people. His armed people.

“Who do I ask for?” he asks, relenting.

I exhale. “Tell them to send Rev.”