Once I reached him, I stuck my back to his and stared at the slithering pit. Stupid power-blocking world. Mikos hated heat, so my kalini would’ve come in handy.
“Any bright ideas, Farrow? Because I’m all out fire.”
“How about using your wita, Trifecta?”
My gaze dropped to my palm. Crap. Why hadn’t I thought of that? I tugged out my dust and fashioned it into a broadsword, which I swung around using my uninjured arm, chopping cleanly through the spike-coated bodies. Whenever I killed one, though, sixteen seemed to rise. “Any other ideas?”
“Run.”
“Where?” They were literally everywhere. It was as though the very moss had morphed into snakes.
“To the calimbor.”
“What if it’s full of them?” I swung my sword, decapitating a mikos whose flat head was leveled with my throat. “We should get back to the train.”
“The tree’s closer.”
It was closer. I still didn’t love his plan, but there was no way I was running in a different direction than he was.
“On the count of three . . .”
As he counted, I sang softly. My nerves were fried, and the smoke from their frying needed an escape hatch.
“Two.”
The rattling seemed to quiet, or maybe I had trouble hearing it over my frantic, throaty melody.
It was a song I’d heard in a human club a year ago. I’d thought it was super cool and had gone to gush to the droid DJ. My enthusiasm had him playing it so many times that night that by the time we’d left the club with Sook, Giya, and the legion of bodyguards assigned to me during my Earthly travels, I’d memorized every note.
The mikos swayed, and then their flat heads plopped right onto the ground. I stopped singing, worried we were in for something worse than a reptilian attack.
“Amara, keep singing.”
I looked over my shoulder at Remo, realizing that my back was still pinned to his. Weren’t we supposed to be running? Had he said one, and I’d missed it?
The rattling started anew.
“Please,” he urged.
My mouth flew open, and I let out a loud sound that was in no way melodious. The flat heads, which had perked up, froze. I adjusted the amount of air rushing out of my mouth. The mikos’ heads began to drift like clumps of mallow, settling on the ground or on a buddy’s quills.
“What now, Remo Farrow?” I sang.
“We still run, but whatever you do, don’t stop singing. Put the sword away first. I don’t want you to lose it and have to dig for it in a snake pit.”
Keeping up my frantic tune, I squeezed the hilt of my weapon until it dematerialized and melted back into my other palm.
“Ready?”
“Nope,” I singsonged.
He snorted and then clapped my hand. We took off running, skating over the tubular bodies, quills crunching beneath our boots’ sturdy soles. Miraculously, neither of us slid. Even more miraculously, none of the mikos reacted to being trampled. We reached the calimbor when I hit the chorus. Remo tugged open the turquoise door built into the base of the tree, and we burst inside the hull.
“Wait. Don’t close it,” I panted between two verses, fearing we might get locked in again.
He shut it.
“Remo! What if it never opens again?”
“I’d rather be stuck in here than out there. Besides, my grandfather is a creative man. I’m sure he’ll have programmed a new method of torture into this cell.”
Still, I extricated my hand from his and tried the door. The latch unclicked and the hinges worked. When a forked tongue darted through the small gap, I slammed the door shut. The strip of tongue fell onto the white and pink circle tiles, wriggling like a worm, before curling in on itself. I held my breath, praying it wouldn’t morph into a snake. Or ten.
Remo caged the inert purple helix under a glass lid. I pivoted to see where he’d taken it from. A jar, now lidless, graced a wooden countertop built into the hollow trunk. It stood beside a dozen others, filled to the brim with rainbow-striped candy, gold-foil bonbons, floating pastel marshmallows, and garlands of candied drosa petals. Over the jars, on walls painted the same cheery turquoise as the front door, were scrawled names like “rainbow twists,” “drops of sunshine,” “morsels of cloud,” and “blooming hearts.” Was this candy shop modeled after the one which had been torn down to accommodate the Duciba? Was any of the candy edible or jeweled fakes meant to entice and disappoint?
I approached one of the jars, lifted the lid, and sniffed the contents. The sugary air made my mouth water. I plucked a marshmallow and placed it on the tip of my tongue where it melted into a delectable puddle.
“Obviously self-preservation isn’t innate,” Remo grumbled.
“Putting a horde of mikos to sleep worked up my appetite.” Since the first marshmallow didn’t make my stomach cramp or mouth foam, I snatched two more, then replaced the lid so they didn’t float away. “I’m not sure what that says about my singing abilities, though,” I added between scrumptious bites.
Remo didn’t answer, his full attention on the red sphere bobbing on the thick russet waters of a crystal fountain sited in the middle of the shop. I sniffed the air, picking up notes of caramel and chocolate, then walked over to it and was about to dip my finger inside when Remo seized my wrist.
“I just ate some candy and didn’t keel over, Remo.”
He tipped his head toward the bronze ripples and the red sphere, which wasn’t a ball but an apple, the same unblemished one that had appeared in every world. “That song you belted out, I despise it almost as much as this apple.”
I tried to take the high road. Actually, I didn’t. I contemplated the high road but chose to stay the course. “Must you always be so vindictive?”
“Vindictive?”
His underhanded criticism and the sight of the stupid apple spoiled the sweetness lingering on my tongue. “Never mind.”
“I didn’t say I hated your singing; I said I hated the song.”
I stared at a bouquet of giant green lollipops spilling from a tall vase beside another turquoise door. “Where do you think that door leads? Back outside?”
A broad wall of navy fabric that smelled of sweat, loam, and man thwarted my sight of the door. “Don’t change the subject.”
“I’d rather not stay on the subject of my mikos-charming skill that obviously doesn’t charm you.”
“You really only hear what you want to hear. I repeat: I. Despise. The song.” Did he hope his clipped tone would help me understand? I understood fine without him having to mimic a droid.
Borrowing his tone, I answered, “I. Don’t. Like it. Either.”
“Then why did you ask the damn DJ to play it all freaking night?”
I blinked. “You were there?”
His jaw reddened. I didn’t think he was embarrassed as much as miffed I hadn’t noticed he was part of my lucionaga entourage.
“I never asked him to play it all night. I just went to tell him it was good.” I pushed a lock of hair behind my ear, flinching at the sting. “Until he played it over and over. Then I thought it was annoying.” After a beat, I said, “Sorry for having missed your attendance.”
“It’s fine.” He didn’t sound fine about it.
“Were you at the club for fun or for work?”
“Fun. Until you came along.”
“Wow. Thanks.”
“That’s not— What I meant was, if I’m off duty but in your presence, I keep an eye out for potential risks.”
“Should’ve gone to another club the second you saw me arrive.”
Silence beat loudly between us before he said, “Yeah. I should’ve.”
“Why didn’t you?”
His Adam’s apple bobbed. “Your ear’s bleeding.”
I glanced down at my fingertips, red where I’d touched my wound, and rubbed them together. My blood turned ochre before flaking off. “So? Why did you stay?”
“Because it was a new
club, and I wanted to see what all the rage was about.”
Made sense. What didn’t make sense was how disappointed his reason for hanging around made me feel.
Before he could sense my curious and confusing musings, I sidestepped him and headed toward the far door.
When I reached for the handle, he added, “And because I don’t trust human men around you. They swarm you. And it’s worse in clubs, under the influence of alcohol.”
“They do not swarm me.”
“Because your guards are tasked with keeping them away.”
“Well, it would be nice if they stopped doing that,” I huffed. “I’m not some helpless kid. I can take care of myself. Like you love to remind me, I’m the Trifecta.” I opened the door a crack, enough to peek behind it and make sure the ground beyond—hardwood . . . good, we weren’t back outside—wasn’t crawling with snakes. It wasn’t. “Seriously, Remo, I’d really appreciate it if you stopped alienating me from people.”
“It’s for your own safety.”
“Is it?”
As he approached, his lips jammed together.
“Is it for my safety?” I repeated.
He wrapped his hand over the edge of the turquoise wood and drew it wider. “A spiral. Your favorite.”
I guessed the topic of ostracizing Amara was closed. For now. “At least the stairs lead up.” I didn’t feel like spending any more time in a basement.
Slender openings had been carved into the coarse husk, acting as windows. As we plodded up the stairs, I glanced through one. The mist, which had been high overhead when we’d arrived, was now draped over the land making it seem as though the calimbors were rooted in clouds.
“Do you think this is what Neverra looked like under my grandfather’s reign?”
Remo peered out one of the openings. “It’s exactly what it looked like. Have you never seen the paintings of our land from that time?”
“I saw some pencil sketches but never a painting. Where did you see one?”
“Grandfather has a couple in his home.”
“He probably misses the mist.”
I sensed Remo’s eyes on the back of my neck even though I was giving the wooden stairs my full attention, desperate to avoid another tumble.
“Believe it or not, prinsisa, my grandfather was opposed to the creation of the mist. He told your grandfather it was a mistake.”
I raised my gaze and an eyebrow.
“He said it would hurt the land, and it did. Crops took a hit. The caligosubi became poor, which sparked uprisings.”
I knew our history as well as Remo. “Which were all squashed by the wariff. Your grandfather.”
“Under Linus’s orders.”
“Just because he was following orders doesn’t make it any less his fault. He gassed hundreds of men and women. Shut them in cupolas.” Nima referred to them as the cage of nightmares. She would know since Gregor confined her into one to punish her after she’d been brought to Neverra. Even though for years, she hadn’t wanted to speak of her experience inside, I finally forced her to tell me about it. I wanted to know how she’d survived when so many hadn’t. “Probably shipped a bunch of them in here.”
Unsurprisingly, Remo stayed mute on the subject as we climbed. He knew where I stood; I knew where he stood.
The second floor of the calimbor wasn’t as fancy and modern as the apartments ground-dwellers now occupied in real Neverra, but it was nonetheless homey with its assortment of pale wooden furniture set against the same shade of turquoise as the shop. Iridescent seashells in all shapes and sizes decorated the walls of the bathroom. The sink was a ruffled clam and the bath shimmered as though made of crushed mother-of-pearl. I twisted the tap but didn’t hold my breath for running water.
When it gushed through the pipes, I exhaled a gasp and cupped a hand to gather some to drink.
“I can’t decide if you’re fearless or clueless.” Remo leaned against the doorframe, arms tied in a loose knot.
I drank whatever didn’t slide through my fingers. When I didn’t puff out of existence, I went for a refill. I used some to wash my face and rinse the blood off my ear. The scrape had already scabbed over. Mikos tongues were thankfully more sandpaper than cheese grater. I picked up a turquoise towel embroidered with conchs and patted myself dry.
“You might survive without food but not without water, Remo.” There was no mirror in the bathroom, not that I truly wanted a glimpse of my face.
When I tucked the towel on the side of the sink, Remo pushed off the doorframe and walked to the still gushing water. I half expected him to turn off the tap and stride right back out, but he leaned over and placed his lips directly underneath it. I searched the bathroom for a container in case the pipes ran dry but abandoned my search because we’d undoubtedly be forced out of this world and into a new one by the time that happened.
I went back toward the window and surveyed the land carpeted with mist. “You think the snakes were the torment part of this world, and now we’re safe?” I asked Remo as he came to stand beside me.
“No. In every cell, there’s been two disruptive factors. In the first one, there was no food and everything was fake except the wolves.”
“And my apple.”
He slanted me a look. “And your apple. In the skyscraper city, there were deceptions and then the earthquake. In the inn, there was the peach pie and then the tornado.”
“Do you think it’s a way to chase us to the next world and keep up the torture?”
He bobbed his head noncommittally.
What would happen if we stayed on the train without hopping out? Would it take us to the next world without inflicting any horror and pain? And then I wondered about something else . . . “What do you think happens if we stay after the second event? Do you think the cell quiets and rebuilds?”
“I don’t know.”
“And what about the apple? You saw the red one downstairs? It’s in every world.”
“Yeah, I noticed it, but I have no clue what it does.”
“Maybe we should try eating it.”
“Maybe we shouldn’t.”
“What if it’s our ticket out of here?”
“What if it’s a trigger?”
“For what?”
“Who knows? A third form of torture.” He returned his gaze to the wisps of mist glittering like stardust under the white sky. “My gut says to steer clear of it. Think you can do that?”
Even though I wasn’t a fan of his cynicism, I nodded.
“Good. Now, what would you like to do?”
“Crawl into that bed over there and hide until someone breaks us out of here.”
“By someone, you mean me?”
“No. I mean someone back home.”
Remo’s gaze flicked to the sky as though on the lookout for a flitting liberator, then to the tree across from us. “There are no spirals around the calimbors here.”
He was right. In Neverra, stairs wrapped around the trunks like lianas. “Maybe all the stairs are indoors.”
“Maybe.” He backed up toward the front door. “I’ll go see what I can find.”
“Alone?”
“You wanted to rest.”
I eyed the bed. Even though it called to me, it wouldn’t be fair to let him venture off on his own. “What song doesn’t make your ears bleed?”
His eyes flashed. I’d have said with relief but doubted Remo feared traipsing around alone. “How’s your oldies repertoire?”
“How old are we talking? Last decade or last century?”
“Last century. There was this band my mother loved. Maroon 5. Ever heard of them?”
They were one of Nima’s favorites but I doubted he wanted to hear our mothers had anything in common.
“Know any of their songs?”
I answered him by singing the opening verse of “Sunday Morning.” He watched me, or rather my mouth, and it made me a little self-conscious, so I dipped my chin and started down the stairs ahead of him.
22
The Confession
The ground, obscured by the cloak of mist, was flat and spongy beneath my boots. It no longer wriggled with spiky reptilian bodies.
I stopped singing to ask, “You think the snakes are gone?”
“I think you should keep singing in case they’re camped out somewhere else.”
So I did. When we reached the next calimbor, we circled it, looking for a door, but the tree was solid bark. As Remo rapped on the trunk to see if it was hollow, I lumbered toward the next one. My boot caught on a jutting root, and I went sailing through the mist, landing hard on my knees and good hand. My elbow rocked in the sling but thankfully didn’t connect with the ground. I grunted because damn, that hadn’t felt nice.
“Amara?” Remo shouted.
“Down here.”
Remo had offered to hold my hand when we’d exited the candy shop, and I’d refused, because I hadn’t wanted to feel like a cripple. When he crouched beside me, concern edging his expression, I sensed he was about to duct-tape our palms together. Sure enough, he extended his hand.
I climbed back to my feet on my own. “I was just checking for mikos.”
“Were you now?” He unfurled his tall body. “If I bring you back in parts to Neverra, your father will have me gassed, so give me your hand.”
“Ugh.” I slapped it into his. “I feel like a kid.”
“You’re acting like one.”
“How am I acting like one?”
He closed his fingers around mine. “By making such a big deal about holding my hand.”
As we circumnavigated yet another doorless tree, I said, “It’s a well-known fact that boys have cooties.”
Humor streaked across his face. “This might be part of the reason you don’t have a boyfriend.”
My cheeks warmed. Hopefully, my blush wasn’t noticeable behind the rising tendrils of mist and the myriad of cuts and bruises I sported.
When his fingers flexed around my knuckles, I whispered, “What?” certain he’d spotted something in the fog and was trying to silently alert me.
“What, what?”
I scanned the heavy mist. “I thought you saw something.”
Reckless Cruel Heirs Page 20
