CHAPTER 24

The speed with which Essa’s group agrees to sending Rev tells me that she is alive and present. More than that, she has realized my intent. Or thinks she did, anyway.

But before that can happen, we have to wait for the crashes to die down. Both groups use the time to prepare in their own way. Tale’s brings out more tables and shelves to make a proper barricade in case Essa’s group decide to try and use their bows again.

One shelf is fitted with a length of rope to serve as a makeshift shield. I cover my hands, arms, legs and neck with bandages as armor against flying wood chips. The meeting will be right in the center of the room, where it should be most dangerous, but after enough crashing and breaking, the room is mostly depleted, with much of the furniture destroyed and cast out through the passages. The trap seems mostly an inconvenience now. I’ll come out looking like a porcupine, but not seriously injured.

I jump into the room with a final look back. The boys are standing around Hilde, who’s holding on to a rope tied around my waist. Tale’s expression is taut and strange, but I’m sure we’re all just as nervous. My only company is Rue, whom we never even got to introduce to Tale’s group. He’s secreted himself around my arm.

“Is this safe?” he buzzes in a low tone.

“Yes,” I answer. “Rev is my sister and I trust her completely.”

“Not that,” he says. I drift into the open room, catching the biggest pieces of wood in my shield, letting the others drift harmlessly against my covered skin. “It’s the Floating Room. It’s scary.”

“Don’t worry, Rue. There’s no danger.”

“But don’t they think they stole the key from them?”

I make a non-committing noise. Essa has proved to be ruthless, but surely we can explain the misunderstanding.

Surely.

While in the air, waiting for Rev to come out, I search and find the side passage I’d spotted before. It’s not the only one I find. Its twin, on the opposite side of the room, beckons. They are corridors cut into the stone halfway up the wall and filled with broken pieces of furniture. Four exits, then. One to the library, one to the moving room. I try to remember what else the chirpy voice in the moving room said when he stopped. One to the laboratory and one… Where? From what Tale said, the rest of the level surrounds this central complex like a ring. Could one of these lead to a Door? Or a Key?

There’s movement on the opposite end of the room and a figure jumps into the air. Rev, the lower part of her face hidden by a scarf, drifts past the lip of the room on her side and into the air. She’s floating for the first time in her life, and it’s clear she takes to it like a fish to water. I can’t help but smile. Rev only loses her balance for a moment before righting herself with a quick twist of her hips. She also has a rope tied around her and a real shield in her off hand.

Bits of wood zip between us, but they’re no longer fanged wooden daggers that risk piercing your eyeball with every trip, but slower and more cumbersome. Is the trap losing potency? If so, then for now it’s still dangerous. Whenever a heavier piece touches the walls or ceiling it becomes a massive projectile that threatens to break bones and smash bodies. One of them careens alarmingly through the room before smashing into smaller, manageable bits. All the wood is red from the blood drifting through the room, spreading outward from the ravaged bodies.

“Hey,” I say with a little wave when she approaches. My rope has stretched as far as it will go. We are some distance apart, but I can tell Rev is not pleased.

“What are you doing here?” she snaps from under her scarf. “I did this so you wouldn’t have to!”

“You did this because you wanted levels, power, and away from Reach. And,” I power through before she can interrupt. “So I wouldn’t have to, fine. Even though you lied so I wouldn’t try to enroll. Which I forgive you for.”

She rolls her eyes.

“I don’t need to apologize for trying to save your life. This place is dangerous! And with your hand—”

Rev looks down at it and I can see pain and worry flower anew behind her eyes. I couldn’t even bear to bandage my hand up properly. It’s twice its usual size.

“You’re all red,” she says.

“I’m fine,” I say, somewhat maniacally. I know that there’s a glint to the world that isn’t normally there. Everything feels too bright, and my face is flushed with heat. Hilde noticed it. Will Rev? But it’s not a problem I can solve right now. Not yet. “Rev, have you seen Katha?”

Her eyes stay fixed on mine.

“This is also why it’s so stupid you came,” she says.

“That’s not an answer,” I say. I can feel panic rising in my gut. “Did you see her or not?”

“Malco… She’s not here.”

“What do you mean? She’s got to be here. This is the Challenge, this is where the Black Sword brings their contestants, what do you mean, did they lose her along the way, did she escape…”

I barely know what I’m saying.

“I mean,” Rev says patiently. “That I searched for her all day yesterday. I asked every other contestant, I looked at each of their faces, I even asked the guards. She wasn’t there. She never even got to the Challengers’ quarters.”

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“What does that mean?” I ask, though it comes out sounding more like a yelp.

“I don’t know. I’m sorry.” Rev tries to reach for me, but the length of the ropes doesn’t permit it. Her arm remains uselessly outstretched.

“We need to decide what is going to happen,” I say. I wipe my eyes with a sleeve, absent mindedly.

Rev recovers quickly, her voice growing harder and more official.

“Here’s what’s going to happen: you’re going to give us back what dwarf stole from us. That’s the most important part, you go get it, you bring it to me. Then I will talk to Essa about taking you in.”

“And ‘the dwarf’?” I ask.

“She’s best where she is,” Rev says. “I don’t think Essa can forgive her for what she did.”

“What she did,” I repeat.

“She’s a thief. She stole from us, and if I take her back Essa will have her head. Whereas with you, I think I can convince her. We’ll say the dwarf lied—”

“Hilde,” I say. “Short for Hildegarde.”

“Malco,” Rev snaps. “Come on, I’m trying to help you. Essa is a difficult person, but she trusts me. We can get you—”

“What Hilde did doesn’t compare—"

“Malco, I need you to listen—”

“I saw what she did to Hilde, after she had her beaten up,” I say. My voice is calm, collected. I’m searching all over Rev’s face for clues, but I can’t see enough of it to be sure of her reaction.

“What do you mean?” she asks.

“She cut her,” I said. “After you left. Abandoned her to die, to attract the cyclops.”

“I…” she says, shaking her head. “Maybe she did do that. No,” she says, putting her hands up to interrupt me. “I’m sure she did. I have no doubt. Mal, Essa’s hard, but she’s a good person. She’s doing what’s right, even when it’s difficult. We didn’t see any cyclops, and…”

She stops because she sees the smile on my face. I try to contain it, but it grows out of control. Soon enough I’m laughing. How much of this is the climbing warmth I feel washing over me?

“You didn’t see the cyclops because I killed it, Rev,” I say when I can catch a breath. “Even before you got there.”

“I don’t believe you.”

The way she says it cuts through my amusement like a knife between ribs. It’s simple and direct, a clear communication of reality. Rev doesn’t believe me.

She lifts her hands to her face and, with a little difficulty, pulls the scarf down. My mouth cracks open in shared pain. My sister’s flesh, the whole side of her jaw, is burned red. It doesn’t make sense to me at first, her pale, perfect skin has always been one of Rev’s main attributes. Some attempt was made to cure the burn, but the wrong herbs were used. The skin has grown back, but not perfectly. The burn is still in evidence.

“Rev…” I say.

“Down on the first floor,” she says. “There is a drake. It prowls in the very center, guarding its hoard and a door against intruders. I thought the door was the way out of here and I convinced a lot of people to try and get through it. Band together, right? That was my plan. But even as a group there was nothing we could do.” Rev sighs and stops, her voice growing strained. “Essa was the one who organized the sruvivors and lead us out of the bind I got us in, for which I got this reminder.” She touches the pink flesh. “But people died, Mal.” Her voice is hard and precise. “They died because of what I did. I managed to catch the emerad by chance, and it was the only thing of worth I did since I’ve arrived because, as it turns out—”

“That’s the Key,” I say. I fish into my pocket and clumsily pull out the emerald. “One of them.”

Rev hesitates.

“You know—"

Suddenly, a quick pull on the rope sends me spinning. I have to push myself against a flimsy chair to stop moving, but when I turn back to the group I can’t tell what went wrong. Hilde is out of sight, but Tale just waves at me to continue. Annoyed, I turn back to Rev.

“Please just come with me, Malco,” Rev implores. “We… We don’t even need to go back to Essa. I don’t care about the key. We’ll give it to her and leave. There are other doors, and there must be other keys. We’ll find them together.”

I’m taken aback. I realize that I would want that very much. Away from these complications, being with someone capable who I know I can trust.

“I…”

But all my responsibilities. Everything I said I would do, Edd lying on the floor waiting for me to come back with a solution to this invasion, Tale out of his depth and trying to protect his people, Hilde…

“Malco,” Rue buzzes.

Immediately after, the shout pierces through the room.

“MALCO!”

I turn. Hilde appears among the armed boys. There’s a look of urgency on her face, and she’s flailing, kicking, trying to get away. From the way she’s moving, she’s got her arms tied behind her back. And they won’t let her go. One of the boys reaches back and punches her in the face, pushing her behind the barricade.

Tale and I lock eyes. I only have time to put the emerald away before he curses and yanks on the rope, dragging me to the corridor. I fumble with the knots, but the fingers on my right hand are thick like sausages and no matter how much pain I inflict upon myself I can’t get them to hook between the loops of rope.

“Mal!” rings Rev’s voice, like a living echo. Her dagger spins through the air, aimed somewhere to my right. I let go of the shield, reach out, and the hilt smacks against the back of my hand. By a miracle, I snag it between two fingers. Another yank squeezes the air out of my lungs and makes the rope bite down on my skin. My shield is dragged along, flying at my side. Tale and one of his guys are pulling on the rope. One more yank and I’ll be pulled into the corridor at speed. They brace, and Tale gives the order.

That’s when I cut.

The suddenly too-light rope offers no resistance, sending Tale smack against his pal and both to the ground. The other two raise their daggers and hold their hands out, waiting for the momentum to carry me to them.

Instead, I grab the shield and lug it in their direction. It’s enough to scatter them, give Hilde the moment’s reprieve she needs to stand. But it’s also enough to throw me a little off course I reach for Hilde and almost catch hold of her.

Almost.

As soon as I touch the wall, a burst of energy courses through me and shoots me as if from a bow. Even with the trap half-spent, the force is enormous, and sends me to the ground, where another flagstone lights up as I hit it and throws me down the length of the room. I spin out of control, smashing against chunks of wood. Rue buzzes violently, making a cacophony of sounds and nonsense words.

An arrow flies past me.

Rev is screaming. Her group have roped her in as well, and Essa seems to have decided that I tried to cheat her. Maybe showing off the emerald wasn’t the best course of action. Another arrow follows the first, but I’m moving too fast. It misses by a mile.

The speed is almost exhilarating. It communicates its own danger like nothing else. For a moment I’m suspended in space, my stomach in my throat, unable to steer, unable to think, and then the trip ends smash against a wall, which flares up, injecting me with force.

Opposing forces collide.

My body is crushed like a mouse under a shoe. Blood escapes through my nose and ever stitch in my hand snaps. Rue yells my name over and over, trying to keep me on this side.

Another hit which I barely feel, this time against the ground. I’m not crushed, simply redirected, accelerated. I careen up at an angle. Rue buzzes violently, shaking my entire body. I have only the presence of mind to pull my arms and legs in, aiming vaguely at the black gap in the wall, and as I pass it and the world goes dark I feel heavy, flying not like a bird but like a thrown stone. I arc.

I hit the ground hard and roll among chunks of wood and other debris, coming to rest in peaceful darkness. Rue shouts out, but nothing could shake me out of this tiredness, this exhaustion.

Unconsciousness draws over me like a warm blanket.