City of Thirst

by Carrie Ryan

  Four swings later, they made it. Marrill landed safely on the big gear. Fin scrabbled up behind her. He rubbed the pain out of his shoulders. “This must be what Ropebone feels like,” he muttered.

  “Totally,” Marrill said. “I feel strangely sorry for taffy.”

  But there was no real time for rest. The gear may have been still, but the city all around was falling. And according to the Map, the way to the Wish Machine was still somewhere far, far above them. In the creepy tower of the creepy Wiverwanes, all the way on top of the Wall.

  “What do you think?” Fin asked. “Hope to flag down another Slandy? I mean, we have to go up, natch, but how… no clue.”

  Marrill didn’t seem to hear. She just stared up at the city, lost in thought. “Hello?” Fin tried again. “Got an idea?”

  “Huh?” she said. “Oh, right. I was just thinking we have to go up. Natch.”

  “That’s what I said.”

  Marrill smiled at him. “Sorry. Just got… distracted.”

  Fin’s cheeks burned. Of course, it was perfectly reasonable. They had just teased death, like, seven times. The Chimes still clanged noisily below them. And they were stuck on a gear, way up in the middle of a falling city, in a place where time had no meaning. Of course she was distracted.

  Still, he couldn’t help feeling the sting of being ignored. Even if it was silly. Even if it was Marrill. Especially if it was Marrill.

  He pushed it away and peered up at the Wall. Overhead, beyond the turning gears and the hanging markets, past the workers hauling up buildings just so the higher-ups could dance on them before they slid back down again, past the snails hauling up workers just so they could haul up buildings again, the heavy smoke clouds from beyond the Wall mixed with the dark gray of rain clouds. Clouds that seemed to have formed out of nowhere in the clear blue sky.

  “We better get moving,” Fin said. “It’s looking dangerously like Iron Ship weather out here.…”

  “Waves,” Marrill said.

  “Pardon?”

  She pointed down. “Waves!” Far below them, the Grovel was a splotch of ugly brown surfing the golden swells of the Stream. Swells that seemed to grow as they rolled through the marshes, covering and uncovering the skeletons of once-great ships. Even from up here, Fin could see the flotilla of docks practically bouncing with each one.

  “It’s the Iron Ship coming,” Marrill gasped. “It has to be!”

  Just then, the Stream billowed like a sheet being tossed in the air. Huge white-tipped breakers came rolling in. And a wall of water raced after them.

  Fin gulped. It was taller than the tallest mast of the tallest ship. It was taller than the lowest of the gears. So tall, he realized, that its crest was dead ahead of them.

  For a moment, everything went very still.

  Even the Chimes seemed to calm.

  As if the wind

  had been

  sucked

  a w a y .

  And then it all hit at once.

  “TIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIDAAAAAAAAAAAAAL

  WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAVE!!!!!”

  ShoutS and ScreamS

  from above

  ShoutS all around and ScreamS

  below them

  ShoutS and ScreamS

  All around s l s

  n i n

  a n a

  i e p

  l s p

  e

  d

  workers up to safety.

  “Climb !” Marrill screamed.

  Fin threw himself at the Wall.

  He leapt for a ledge,

  yanked himself up into a doorway,

  shimmied like mad

  up a

  long

  glass

  pipe

  full of

  Stream

  water.

  Marrill scrabbled

  just inches behind.

  Even with the city sliding,

  they were making some

  headway.

  Fin dared a glance over his shoulder.

  And immediately regretted it.

  The whole of the Grovel, the entire floating network of docks, was buoyed up as the wave struck it. Everywhere, people held on for dear life. Ships that had been toy-tiny moments ago now grew to full size and surfed straight at them.

  He tugged himself over someone’s front stoop and struggled up a battered trellis. Against his better judgment, he dared another look back. And found himself locking eyes with a terrified girl, clinging to the foremast of a pirate ship.

  In the space of a single heartbeat, the girl’s eyes skipped from Fin down to Marrill. Raw fear warped into confusion. Confusion warped into fury.

  “Marigold Mae Aesterwest!” Remy screamed. “You are so dead!”

  CHAPTER 15

  And the Waves Came Crashing

  All the Chimes rang at once as the wave broke against the Wall. Marrill shrieked, but her voice was lost in the noise. She didn’t know what to be more scared of: the sprays of pure magic splashing all around her? The looming threat of the Iron Ship, no doubt riding in just moments away? Or her very, very angry babysitter, who was nearly within striking distance?

  Then the wave was sucked away, drained by whatever was under the Wall, and the Kraken dropped down with it. Raw magic hung in the air like Remy’s angry yell; the hairs danced on Marrill’s skin. Her leg itched where a tiny droplet had sloshed onto it, but fortunately it wasn’t enough to make her kneecap sprout whiskers.

  But it was too soon to breathe a sigh of relief. There were more waves coming, each one larger than the first.

  “Keep climbing, Marrill!” Fin’s shout tangled with the clatter of the Chimes. She’d dropped almost a dozen feet in the span of a few thoughts. Quickly, she pulled herself up onto a motionless gear… and felt it rumble beneath her.

  “Wha? Whoa!” she yelped as the gear began to turn. She threw out her arms to keep her balance. The buildings slid past even faster than before. All across the Wall, gears everywhere started turning.

  The sound of the Chimes beat against her skull, causing her teeth to vibrate. She could practically feel the crush of air as the next wave approached. It reminded her of the time in Kenya when she and her parents had stood on a massive rock as a stampede of wildebeests coursed past them. Only, she didn’t think the wave would part around her.

  She struggled to keep her balance as the gear spun beneath her. Soon she was running in place, facing the great wall of water as it swept straight toward her. A familiar mast and crow’s nest rose up its face.

  “Marrill!” Remy screamed through the sound of a thousand alarm clocks going off at once. She stood in the center of the Kraken’s forecastle, hands cupped around her mouth. “Come on! Jump! I’ll… probably not be quite as mad at you!”

  The rigging squealed as Ropebone Man threw lines to anyone on the Wall who needed help, plucking them free of danger and dropping them onto the cluttered deck. “Welcome aboard, ya freeloaders,” the Naysayer bellowed. “Keep yer hands to yerself, and pay what you can. Everything you can. Throw it on the pile. Direct your complaints to the cheerleader.”

  Marrill braced herself. She knew she should jump. If not on this wave, then the next. Ropebone Man would catch her and she’d be safe.

  But then, she’d also be back in the Grovel. Back at the bottom of the Wall. Helplessly far away from the tower at the top, and the Wish Machine hidden there.

  Helplessly far away from saving her mom.

  There had to be another way. She searched around desperately. A few workers dangled on their snail lines nearby, snagging debris before the next wave hit. But the closest one was several yards to her right and a dozen yards below.

  She thought about the time she’d stood on top of the cliff with her mom, the water terrifyingly far away. As her mom had told her then, sometimes you just had to jump. And if she wanted the chance to have more adventures with her mother in the future, that’s what she’d have to do now.

  With a deep bre
ath, Marrill threw herself off the gear. And was free-falling.

  “Oh, heck no!” she heard Remy shout as the Kraken crested the incoming wave.

  Below, a very shocked-looking Monervan glanced up, saw Marrill plummeting toward him, and began tugging desperately on his line.

  He wasn’t fast enough. Marrill smacked straight into him, scrabbling for purchase. “Yo, bwah, ho, no!” the split-faced man protested.

  The wave struck the Wall with a thundering crash. The force of it set the Chimes clanging in a deafening cacophony. She clung to the snail line tightly as she and the Monervan spun wildly through the air.

  “Up, up!” her new host shouted. Over the clang of the Chimes, she heard a loud, wild scream. A second later, Fin dropped toward them, his skysails billowing. He wheeled once through the air around her. She stretched out her hand as he came past, and he grabbed it.

  “Not another one!” the Monervan shrieked. The snail line yanked them up into the sky. Fin scrambled for purchase, his foot smacking right into the man’s stomach. “Oof!” he cried.

  “Sorry,” Marrill told him. But inside, she was cheering. She’d done it! They’d made it!

  “Nice moves.” Fin laughed. The Monervan grumbled.

  Moments later, they scrabbled free onto the scaffolding of a giant levator snail.

  All around them was chaos. They were up high now, higher even than the party had been the night before. Way down below, the docks rose and fell with each wave like a car on a roller coaster. Above, cranes hauled large terraces filled with Monervans to safety.

  “This way,” Marrill said, leaping onto a staircase and darting up it.

  She’d almost reached the top when a familiar voice shouted, “Marrill Aesterwest, don’t you dare move a muscle!”

  “Trouble incoming,” Fin warned, pointing to where a nearby levator snail hauled in a line. On the end of it was an extremely perturbed Monervan, an agitated sailor, and a very, very unhappy babysitter.

  “Get me over there,” Remy demanded. “Now!”

  “I’m fine!” Marrill called to Remy, trying to act like everything was normal. She continued up the staircase, her legs burning and breaths coming in gasps.

  But Remy didn’t give in so easily. She scrabbled up a ladder, bringing her level with Marrill. “Oh no you don’t!” she cried.

  Marrill hadn’t made it this high only to fall back down the Wall again. As the top of the staircase slid past the bottom of a massive vertical gear, she jumped. She managed to snag a hand around the edge of one of its giant teeth as it swept upward. For a moment, she was afraid she’d misjudged—the angle was too steep and her grip was slipping. Her stomach dropped as her feet kicked at the empty air.

  “Hold on!” someone shouted. From the corner of her eye, she saw a small figure leap onto the gear above her. He scrambled over the teeth, not once hesitating as he climbed his way down to her.

  Marrill’s arms shook with effort. Just when she couldn’t hold on any longer, she felt hands around her wrists. She looked up to find a kid not much older than her, floppy black hair falling in his face.

  “If you’re going to keep threatening to fall, we’re going to have to get you your own skysails,” he grunted, heaving her up to safety on top of the wide tooth.

  Marrill took a moment to catch her breath as the gear spun them higher. “Thanks,” she wheezed. “That was a pretty big risk you took to save me.”

  The kid looked at her strangely, meeting her eyes for a moment. She blinked; she was staring straight at Fin. How had she not realized that before?

  She let her head fall against his shoulder, hoping he wouldn’t notice her embarrassed blush. “Thanks for saving my life, Fin.”

  After a brief pause, Fin chuckled, though it sounded a bit forced. “Of course. What are friends for?”

  “Incoming!” Remy swung in next to them on yet another snail line. She landed with a grunt on the tooth above theirs and immediately popped her head over the edge. “Marrill,” she said, eyes scanning over her charge. “Marrill plus one,” she added with satisfaction, nodding at Fin. Apparently, the craziness of Monerva was no match for a determined Remy.

  A second later, Coll scrambled onto the vertical gear next to her, looking furious. “What were you thinking?” he bellowed. “What were both of you thinking? I had to leave the Naysayer in charge of the Kraken!”

  Remy glared at him. “No kid gets lost on my watch,” she growled.

  Coll crossed his arms, glowering, but said nothing more. They rode the rest of the way up in strained silence, like an angry family on a Ferris wheel. But that didn’t stop Marrill from enjoying the ride; she’d always loved Ferris wheels.

  When they reached the top of the gear, they stepped off onto a crooked balcony. The facade of the building attached to it was cracked, the entire structure split in two. One side slipped down the Wall at a slightly faster rate than the other. It seemed that the damage from the waves had reached all the way up here.

  Workers in harnesses were already scrambling to dismantle several beautiful stained-glass windows. More and more joined with each passing moment, so that the air was alive with the sound of sawing and hammering and prying and shouting.

  Remy’s hand clapped on Marrill’s shoulder. “You’re mine, kid.” Marrill tried an innocent smile, but the babysitter wasn’t buying it.

  “We should get back to the Kraken,” Coll told them, eyes on the horizon. Dark clouds now filled the sky, boiling black. Just looking at them made Marrill uneasy. But thankfully, there was no sign of red lightning. No sign of the Iron Ship.

  Yet.

  “So you think the waves might be from that Iron Master dude?” Remy asked.

  Coll rolled his shoulders, wincing slightly. He rubbed at the rope tattoo stretched across the base of his neck. “Could be. Hard to say how long until he makes it through, though.”

  “What about Ardent and Annalessa?” Marrill asked. “Are they okay? Have they figured out anything about the Iron Tide?”

  Coll nodded. “They came back to the ship last night, said they’d found a promising lead. Got some supplies and took off this morning. We told them you were sleeping, which you will be paying me back for someday. They told us not to go anywhere and to stay out of trouble.” He eyed Remy and Marrill pointedly.

  Sheepishly, Marrill glanced at the ground, running her toe along a crack in the balcony. Normally, she wasn’t someone who broke rules. Well, at least not the important ones anyway. But she’d never felt so close to something so important before.

  “Let’s go,” Coll said. He jabbed his chin sharply down toward the Grovel. From this far up, the Kraken was a distant dot, riding the rising tide.

  “No,” Marrill said, straightening her back. “I’m not going back to the Kraken. I’m going to the top. I’m finding the Syphon, and I’m going to wish my mom well.” If the tables were turned, she knew her mother would move heaven and earth to help her. Marrill resolved to do the same.

  Beside her, someone cleared his throat and Marrill glanced at him. Her cheeks flamed. “I mean we’re going up to the top,” she corrected. “Fin and me. The two of us. We’re both going. Me. With Fin.”

  Coll crossed his arms. “No way, nohow.”

  Remy nodded. “Exactly. You march yourself back down this vertical wall to that magical pirate ship and go to your room, this instant.”

  Before Marrill could argue, though, Fin stepped toward Coll. “Marrill’s right. The Monervans told us last night that the Salt Sand King—the guy who made this place—had to get his last wish granted to put Monerva back on the Stream. If you can think of another way out of here, you let me know.” His gaze flicked toward the tattoo wrapped across Coll’s neck.

  Coll’s eyes widened and then his face collapsed into a frown. For the first time, Marrill realized that the captain’s tattoo was getting tighter. And he was really, really uncomfortable with staying here. “What’s it to you, kid?” he rasped. He turned to Marrill. “You can’t just wish your
problems away, you know.”

  Marrill bit her lip. But she stood tall and met his eyes. “What if I can? What if we all can?” She stepped toward him and dropped her voice. “There has to be something you’d wish for. Right?”

  Coll stared at her for a long moment. Then his gaze flitted back toward the horizon as he considered the question. “Okay,” he said at last.

  “What?” Remy squeaked.

  Coll ignored her. “Where do we go?”

  “The Wiverwanes’ Tower,” Fin told him, “on top of the Wall. Now, how we get there…”

  Marrill sighed. That was the question, indeed. They couldn’t reach the top of the city, much less the Wall. Even the levator snails could only get them so high.

  Then her eyes landed on an entire building being hauled up from below. She smiled as it slowed to pass. According to Slandy, the choicest bits of building material were always taken to the highest of Monerva. That looked pretty choice to her.

  “All aboard!” she cried, leaping for its open door with a laugh. But the sound died in her throat as she stumbled inside and looked around. Long rows of empty shelves greeted her. On the floor, a dust-covered bottle of detergent stared up with the eyes of a cartoon bear.

  Her chest constricted painfully. Something was very, very wrong.

  The others followed behind, crowding in after her. “Uh,” Remy said. “This looks…” She wandered deeper into the building, speechless.

  “Familiar,” Marrill finished weakly.

  “Wow, this place has definitely seen better days,” Fin remarked. He stood by a massive plate glass window covered in grime. “I haven’t seen anything like this before. Doesn’t look Monervan at all.”

  Marrill had a sense of déjà vu so intense it left her breathless and off balance. “That’s because it’s not,” she whispered. Her heart raced and her head spun. She pressed her back against the wall and slid to the floor.

  “Marrill, you okay?” Coll asked as he crouched next to her.

  “This building…” She swallowed. “This store—it’s from my world.” Her voice trembled. “From the parking lot that touches the Pirate Stream.”