by Melissa Grey
Seeing Caius and Rowan together made Echo’s head hurt almost as badly as performing magic had. It wasn’t right. They belonged to two separate worlds—Rowan occupied one bubble in Echo’s landscape of known associates and Caius another. It wasn’t as bad when they had a buffer of other people between them, as they had at Avalon, but now it was just the three of them. Echo would have sold a kidney for another person—preferably Ivy, with her naturally soothing presence—to make the situation less awkward. You really only needed one kidney anyway. The sound of a throat being cleared cut through the darkness.
“So,” Rowan asked, “what are we looking for exactly? The professor was either unwilling or unable to cough up that bit of information. He just told us where to find you and made us promise not to hurt you or steal anything else from the museum.” In an atrocious Scottish accent, he added, “Knowledge is meant to be shared.”
Echo sighed. There would be no outrunning them. They were far too stubborn for that. There was a lot of work to do and precious little time in which to do it. “I’m looking for”—at Caius’s quirked eyebrow, she amended her statement—“we’re looking for a book.”
Rowan raked a dubious glance across the bookcases that spanned the not inconsiderable length of the room. “Well, that really narrows it down. There are hardly any books in here at all.”
There were thousands of books, all safely nestled behind glass.
“It’s a folio,” Echo said. “A Compendium of Fairy Tale Creatures, written and illustrated by Phineas Ogilvy.” She clapped her hands. “Better get to work.” And split the two of you up. As it was, she was surprised they’d lasted as long as they had without killing each other.
The three of them searched the shelves, peering through glass at hard-to-read titles. Echo was beginning to despair of ever finding the book when a triumphant shout came from Caius’s corner of the room.
“Found it,” he said, pointing through the glass at a large leather-bound folio.
Echo made short work of the lock on the bookcase. She slipped the volume out, sliced through its binding with her dagger, and eased the spine away. A piece of paper, folded many times over to fit inside the spine, fluttered to the ground. Caius picked it up and carefully unfolded it.
“What does it say?” Echo asked, peering over his shoulder. The map wasn’t like any she had ever seen before. There didn’t appear to be any landmasses or passages marked on the parchment. Instead, all she saw was a jumble of pictographic symbols arranged in concentric circles. “What do those mean?”
“I’m not entirely sure….” Caius held the paper up to the shaft of moonlight that fell through the high windows. As soon as the light hit the page, the shape of a continent appeared. Echo caught her breath. A rounded eastern shore and a collection of familiar curving islands off the coast—it was Asia. In the upper right corner a stone bridge suspended between two mountain peaks slowly came into view.
“Brilliant,” Caius said softly. “Ink that appears only in moonlight. It’s a beautiful bit of magic.”
Faint lines glowed on the page, connecting segments of the intricate pictographic symbols.
“It’s Chinese,” Caius said.
“You can read Chinese?” Rowan asked.
“Yes.”
“Of course you can,” grumbled Rowan. Echo elbowed him in the ribs.
Caius ignored them both. A wrinkle formed between his eyebrows as he concentrated, mouthing words silently. Finally, he said, “It’s a reference to the Tian Shan mountains in northwest China.” He traced a line of text and read aloud: “ ‘Where all things begin, so must all things end. The cradle of life is a pyre come death.’ ”
“Creepy,” Echo said. “What does it mean?”
“Humans call the range the Tian Shan mountains. In Drakhar, they are called Amrydalik ker Darask. It means ‘Beginning’s End.’ It’s a sacred place in both Drakharin and Avicen mythology. I’ve heard of it, but in all my time hunting the firebird, I never came across anything that would make it seem relevant.” Caius pointed to the drawing of the bridge. “And this is how we’re going to get there.”
Echo clapped him on the back, harder than she meant to, and he almost dropped the map. “Nice work.” Her eyes fell to the folio on the table beside them. Space in her backpack was at a premium, but it didn’t look that heavy. And one good deed deserved another.
“What are you doing?” Rowan asked as Echo slide the folio into her backpack. “Didn’t you say you had a rule about not stealing books?”
“It’s not really stealing if you’re returning something to its rightful owner,” Echo explained. She zipped up her backpack and put it on. The extra weight was hardly noticeable. She left the gallery, Rowan and Caius following her through the door and into the concourse. Thousands of people came through here every day. The veil to the in-between should be thin. “If we live long enough to make it back to Scotland, I’m going to return it to Stirling.” She reached for both their hands. Caius saw the request in her eyes and nodded. “Buckle up, boys. We’re going to China.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
They emerged from the in-between on a short, narrow stone bridge, suspended hundreds, quite possibly thousands, of feet above the ground between two soaring peaks. Echo barely had time to appreciate the feeling of something solid beneath her before the wind knocked one of her feet off the bridge. She fought for balance, arms flailing. A hand shot out—with the wind whipping her hair into her face, she couldn’t see whom it belonged to—grabbed her arm, and yanked her back onto the bridge. She collided with a broad, solid chest.
“Almost lost you there.” Caius’s voice rumbled against her ear. His tone was light; if it hadn’t been for the rapid rise and fall of his chest, Echo wouldn’t have known he was ruffled in the slightest.
She peered over her shoulder and immediately wished she hadn’t. From where they stood, the ground wasn’t even visible. All Echo could see were thick ribbons of fog pushed along by the wind that screamed between the mountains like a vengeful god. An arched entryway was cut into the mountainside on either end of the bridge. Chinese characters were carved above both arches. One of the entrances was sealed with heavy rocks. The other opened to the blackness within the mountain. It was as if someone had blocked the bridge off to ensure there was only one way to go.
“Can you read it?” Echo asked, gesturing to the inscriptions.
Caius tilted his head toward the eastern door. “Those are the characters for ‘death’ and ‘rebirth.’ ” Turning toward the doorway on the western side of the bridge, he added, “And those are the words for ‘light’ and ‘dark.’ I think we’re in the right place.”
Behind Echo, a throat cleared. She turned to find Rowan standing there with a frown on his lips and a disapproving look on his face. “If the two of you are done canoodling, I believe we have an ancient temple to find.”
“I do not canoodle,” Caius shot back.
Echo stepped backward, careful to keep both feet on the bridge. It was about three feet across and maybe fifty feet long. Ancient ropes swung on either side, but the security they provided was flimsy at best, deceptive at worst. They wouldn’t have held her weight if she had stumbled against them. Their presence would have mocked her as she pitched over the side and plummeted to her death. The wind continued to buffet her, an insistent reminder that the threat of an ignominious death by winding up as a splat on the earth in the middle of nowhere in China was still a very real possibility.
“Nice landing spot you picked, Caius,” Echo said. “Remind me to never trust you with anything ever again.”
Caius shrugged. “We’re on a mountain. Our options were limited.” He nodded to Rowan. “But you’re right. No time to waste.” Looking toward the western door, he added, “This way.” He spun on his heel, heading into the mountain’s cavern through the western arch. She watched him go, unwilling to face Rowan and his judgmental stare. As it was, she could still feel his irritation bristling at her back even if she c
ouldn’t see his expression.
“He just assumes people will follow him, doesn’t he?”
Echo turned. Rowan, hair-feathers snapping in the wind, met her gaze with a glare that she realized was only partially intended for her. His anger, it seemed, was spread evenly between her and Caius. A silver lining, perhaps, if a rather slender one. At least she wouldn’t have to bear the brunt of his bad mood all by herself.
“He was a prince for a hundred years, Rowan. I guess he got used to it.” She took off down the bridge, toward the archway through which Caius had disappeared. A particularly strong gust of wind slammed into her, eager to hasten her demise. Not today, Mother Nature.
She stepped through the archway. Her ears roared with the sudden silence, as if they missed the wind’s wild howling. She looked back. Rowan was still standing on the bridge, but he wasn’t looking at her. His gaze was on something in the distance, or maybe on nothing at all. His brows were drawn tightly together. It was his thinking face. A death trap of a bridge wasn’t the best place for contemplation.
“You coming?” Echo asked.
Rowan started as if lost in his own little world. “Yeah,” he said, hastening down the bridge. Echo couldn’t help but notice that he had a much easier time keeping his balance than she did. Added bulk. Had to be. He caught her eye and smiled. For a moment, it felt like old times, even if she could see telltale signs of how forced the smile was: the tightness of his jaw, the way the smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. But he was trying, in his way. He gestured for Echo to head down the stairs first, in the direction Caius had gone, deeper into the mountain. “Lead the way, firebird.”
—
A winding staircase led them down into the mountain in near darkness. Echo switched on her flashlight as the last of the light from outside disappeared. The beam flickered, then died. Caius cursed as his met with the same fate. They were still near the top of the stairs, the mountain’s darkness punctured only by the light slipping through the opening that led to the bridge. Unease settled deep in Echo’s gut. She’d never been afraid of the dark before, not the way children tended to be. But then, she’d never had reason to fear the shadows until she discovered the kind of monster that could hide in their depths.
Echo smacked the side of her flashlight with her palm. The batteries managed to emit a final, weak beam of light before dying. For good. Her feet were glued to the top step, Caius a few feet below her, Rowan at her back. “Why won’t the flashlights work?” Her voice echoed in the cavernous space, bouncing off the walls and down the stairs. “The batteries were brand-new.”
“It’s the magic,” Caius said, voice barely above a whisper, and reverent, as if he were standing on holy ground. “It’s strong here. Can’t you feel it?”
“Not really sure I want to feel it, to be perfectly honest,” Rowan muttered.
Caius shushed him. “Close your eyes. Listen.”
Fear spiked through Echo. An irrational, primitive sort of fear. The kind her Neolithic ancestors must have felt in the dead of night when they could hear predators lurking. The darkness was complete enough that she didn’t think closing her eyes would make much of a difference, but there was a slim chance Caius knew what he was talking about. He was older, after all, though Echo wasn’t sold on the wiser part of that equation. But she complied, squeezing her eyes shut.
“Listen,” Caius whispered again.
Echo listened. At first, she heard nothing but the sound of her own breathing, the quiet susurration of Rowan’s jeans as he shifted position behind her, the thumping of her heartbeat in her ears.
And then she heard it.
No. Not it.
Them.
It would have been easy to mistake the noise for wind rushing through the opening at the top of the stairs, but there was a strain of something else, something sentient, woven through it. The sound was like a thousand voices whispering in distant rooms in tongues too ancient to be understood. Echo recognized stray phonemes here and there. There was the guttural rumble of Drakhar consonants, the lilting melodies of Avicet, quickly spoken and heavy on the long vowels. But it was like trying to make sense of Old English. The words were familiar, but still foreign. She strained to listen, to catch as much of the whispers as she could, but their overlap combined to create a single buzzing sound, like wind through densely packed trees.
“What the hell is that?” Rowan asked. His voice interrupted the whispers like a rock thrown into still water.
“The dead,” Caius said.
“Like ghosts?” Rowan’s voice cracked on the second word. Echo sympathized. She had enough dead people in her head. She wasn’t keen to add to her tally of unwelcome voices.
“Yes,” Caius said. “Like ghosts.”
“Well, shit.” Rowan’s boots made a scraping sound on the loose pebbles as he took a few steps toward the entrance. Was he leaving? He couldn’t leave. Not now. Not because of some ghosts.
Echo turned to catch him and drag him back, but all she managed to do was pivot into the poke Rowan had aimed at her back. His finger dug into her ribs, right in her most ticklish spot. She jumped and nearly lost her footing.
“What the hell was that for?” she asked.
“Two things,” Rowan said. “One, you’re the firebird.” He waved something in her face that looked, in the dim light, like a club. “Make fire.” When Echo didn’t immediately do so, he sighed. “It’s a torch, dummy. There were two on either side of the door.”
Oh.
“I’m not a dummy,” Echo mumbled, reaching for the torch. “You’re a dummy.”
Caius sighed, very loudly and very pointedly.
Echo did not acknowledge his obvious disdain, but she did what Rowan asked. She made fire. Her fingers trailed up the length of the torch as she focused, imagining what the end result would be. A dull knot of pain formed at the base of her skull, but she ignored it. It was weaker than the ache she’d felt at the British Museum. This was a much smaller act of magic, but Echo preferred to think she was getting stronger. That she was in charge of the power and not vice versa. A tongue of flame burst from her hands, leaping to the head of the torch in black and white sparks. Upon contact with the old, fraying linen wrapped around the torch, they turned the bright amber color of a normal fire. The brightness of it was so sudden, Echo’s eyes watered.
“There,” Rowan said. “That’s better. I knew I kept you around for a reason.” His smile was tight, but he was trying to act like nothing had changed. Like they were the same people they’d been months ago. They weren’t, but Echo didn’t begrudge him the fantasy.
She did the same with the second torch and passed it to Caius.
“You said two things. What was the second thing?”
Rowan swallowed, as if unsure whether he should say the thing he was about to say. “The ghosts,” he started. “The voices. Are they anything like your voices? You know, the ones in your head.”
Echo had never told him about the voices. The Ala must have shared that bit of information. When the Ala awoke, they would be having words. “When you put it like that, you just make me sound like a crazy person,” Echo said. “But no, not really. These voices are like listening to an old record. It’s a little fuzzy, a little distant. It’s almost like the white noise between radio stations. There are words hidden in the sound, but I can’t make them out.” She tapped the side of her head. “These voices are crystal clear when they want to be.”
“Like Rose?” Caius asked. His tone was free of inflection, his expression carefully neutral. He’d be a great poker player. But Echo wasn’t fooled.
“Yes,” she said, not unkindly. “Like Rose.”
He nodded briskly and turned away. Echo suspected he didn’t want her to see the look on his face. She let him have his privacy. The light from his torch reached only a few feet below them, as if whatever awaited at the bottom was swallowing it.
“Onward and upward,” Echo quoted, mostly to herself. “To Narnia and the north.”
Echo smiled, genuinely glad to have him around, even if the wounds between them had yet to heal. “Shut up, Rowan.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Ivy whiled away the hours reciting the names of herbs and their uses. Crushed mugwort was good for burns and minor skin irritations. Mixed with a bit of honey, it could fade bruises. Burdock root to treat toxins in the blood. Pokeweed extract to relieve inflammation of the joints. She sorted through her knowledge as if she were flipping through a catalog, watching the sun descend, its light diffused by fog.
True to her word, Tanith sent food. The same Firedrake who had nodded at Ivy in the courtyard delivered her evening meal. Twisting the hem of her sweater in a white-knuckled grip, she watched him enter, arms laden with a tray topped with silver domes. He set the tray on the low table in front of the fireplace, glancing at Ivy, who sat curled up on the window seat. Black hair fell across his forehead, brushing the tops of his eyebrows. His eyes were nearly the same color as his armor, pale yellow at the edges and darker gold near the pupil. He offered her a small smile. “You have to eat something,” he said in halting Avicet.
That took her by surprise. She hadn’t expected a simple soldier to know the Avicen tongue. Caius did, but he was a nerd. Ivy tightened her arms around her shins, watching him over her knees.
“The food is not—” He hesitated, tripping over the words. “There is no—” He gestured helplessly at the tray, muttering something in Drakhar.
