by Ted Sanders
Mr. Meister watched him go and then walked over to Horace. The Mordin who was miraculously pinned in midair watched him approach with wary, angry eyes. He threw a ferocious swipe at Mr. Meister, but the old man, standing just beyond the creature’s long reach, barely flinched.
“The Mordin carry their Tan’ji—one for disguise, one for tracking Tanu—embedded in the flesh along their spines,” Mr. Meister explained calmly, as if this weren’t at all horrific. “It makes them easy targets for the phalanx, but they can still put up a fight when pinned.” He turned to the Mordin. “How many are you?” he asked pleasantly, sounding like he was taking dinner reservations.
“More than enough. We’ll take home a prize tonight, don’t you worry.”
“I am not worried.” As if on cue, a loud, crunching thump rang out from back behind them in the darkness, accompanied by a rasping cry of pain—unmistakably the voice of an Auditor. “Ah,” said Mr. Meister thoughtfully. “One of the Quaasa is down, it seems.”
Horace strained to see. That must have been Neptune—it seemed she’d won her wrestling match. But now another Auditor materialized from the woods, approaching with hands up. Horace filled the phalanx again, readying himself.
“Peace,” the Auditor said. “Peace.”
“One of your sisters has had a nasty fall.”
The Auditor’s shining face split into a mirthless smile. Her blue eyes shone. “I am quite aware. I feel her pain.”
Mr. Meister gestured to the two wounded Mordin, and the third still trapped by the phalanx. “You are losing this battle.”
“You brought the battle to us,” the Auditor said plainly, sounding so reasonable that for a moment Horace had to stop and wonder if that was true. “As you usually do. Under the circumstances, I see no reason why we cannot—”
The Auditor flinched as if shot. She threw her head back, rigid, hands frozen into claws. What was happening? Mr. Meister took a step back, clearly as confused as Horace was. Then the Auditor opened her mouth and let loose a piercing scream of agony and fury, like a rake across a chalkboard. It seemed to shake the very stars. Then she turned and raced through the trees toward the house, looking for all the world as though she meant to tear it to the ground.
CHLOE LET HERSELF slip into the cold flesh of the earth, into the dark and quiet. She went down five feet, or ten—she had no real way of knowing. She gauged her depth by the temperature, and by the density of the earth. She slowed her fall, finding buoyancy, trying not to think about the unfathomable deeps that yawned beneath her, all the way to the molten core of the planet, four thousand miles down. She was the Keeper of the Alvalaithen. The Earthwing. Down here, she would decide where she would and would not go. And while she couldn’t quite fly through the dirt and stone—not yet—still she was getting better. She was getting faster.
The first trick, of course, was to be brave. If there was one good thing about her mother’s return—and Chloe wasn’t sure there was—it was discovering the truth about that long-ago accident, that horror that had haunted her for so long. She now knew she hadn’t done anything wrong that day. Going underground wasn’t some scary side effect of her powers, meant to be avoided at all costs. In fact, she was starting to think maybe it was the heart of her powers.
The Earthwing, right?
But even if so, the second trick was learning how to move underground. Ordinarily when she went thin, she moved around by thinking of surfaces and planes, the borders between objects. When she was thin and standing on the floor, or sitting in a chair, she kept herself from sinking in by telling certain parts of her body—her feet, her rump—that they couldn’t be there. They couldn’t enter that. And her body obeyed without question. But down here, there were no easy borders. Nothing to push against or resist.
And yet on that terrible night when her house had burned down, she’d discovered that the thought process underground wasn’t so different from the one above ground. It was telling parts of herself where they couldn’t be. Except that here, the telling had to be gentle—a suggestion instead of a command—and it had to ripple down the atoms of her body from head to toe. Let’s not be here. And when she did it right, the result was movement. Propulsion.
Earthwing.
Of course, working through all the mechanics like that didn’t feel ideal. It was not very swashbuckling. Six months ago, she’d have barfed at the thought. But apparently she was getting older. More mature, more methodical.
She blamed Horace for that.
She set herself into motion now, rejecting the space she was in inch by inch. It was so silent here, so utterly dark—the humour had nothing on this. She slid through the ground at the speed of a slow jog. Almost immediately, two Auditors stuck their noses into the Alvalaithen alongside her, greedy and grasping and unwanted. But Chloe was ready for it—as ready as a Keeper could be—and she pushed back hard against them.
She managed to oust one of them immediately, bullying her presence clean out of the dragonfly. The other lingered, actively fighting Chloe for control. Chloe held fast. As she cruised away from the scene, hoping she was headed toward the house, she could hear swift footsteps on the ground overhead—the Auditor, trotting along at the surface. Chloe was pretty sure that the Auditor who had done most of the talking earlier was the one from the pier. But this Auditor was different, possibly the one who had been giggling. Chloe frowned on giggling.
Chloe soared through a veiny net of tree roots, and a smooth submerged boulder. She willed herself to go faster, and faster, but it was like pushing a brick through mud. Through the Alvalaithen, she almost felt like she could sense the Auditor’s astonishment at what she was doing, a devilish curiosity. The Auditor probed at the threads of power Chloe wove. And then, suddenly, the footsteps overhead ceased. Had she given up?
No sooner had Chloe asked the question than she felt a wondrous and horrible tingle all up and down her body—the distinct sensation of flesh within flesh. The Auditor was underground with her, swimming alongside her. Moving through her.
Chloe burned with rage. She knew the Auditor was only imitating, but still this was insult on top of injury. It had taken Chloe seven years to learn this particular trick, a trick she still hadn’t even mastered, and the Auditor was duplicating the feat with no practice at all. And part of Chloe’s rage, she knew, was born out of admiration for the bravery involved—if the Auditor somehow lost her grip on the Alvalaithen down here, she was dead.
Then again, so was Chloe.
Chloe tried to surge ahead, to leave the Auditor behind. But if she sped up at all, it was only a tiny bit, and the Auditor kept up easily, weaving back and forth, in and out of Chloe’s body. Frustrated, Chloe willed herself upward, thinking wildly that she might be able to catch air and lose the Auditor. She barely broke the surface, like a dolphin coming up to breathe. She was shocked to catch a glimpse of a Mordin loping toward her, headed toward Horace and the others. It stopped, seeming to spot her, but Chloe kept moving and let gravity take her back under.
She went deeper instead, daring the Auditor to follow her. She went deeper than she’d ever gone, into chillier, rockier ground. She still had plenty of breath—both with her lungs and with the Alvalaithen—and she meant to use it. Her heart hammered inside her chest. Inside the dragonfly, meanwhile, the Auditor’s presence still burned. Chloe went deeper still, to depths she’d only had nightmares about, pushing the limits of her own bravery, hoping the Auditor wouldn’t be able to stomach it. Down and down she went.
But then she hit wetness, shockingly cold, and realized she’d gone so deep she’d hit the level where the ground was saturated with water. How deep was that—fifty feet? One hundred? Two hundred? She had no idea. She panicked and pulled up, and as she pulled up the Auditor sliced through her again.
Seething, Chloe went completely vertical. She sped upward, not just pushing but pulling now, straining for the surface. She thought perhaps she’d never gone faster. The Auditor swiped at her feet—was Chloe leaving her be
hind? She rose out of the water-soaked ground, into warmer earth. Up and up. She entered the looser soil that told her she was almost to the surface, and she reached up over her head with both hands. When they touched air, she grabbed at the surface of the earth and pulled, hard, as if she was hoisting herself up out of a swimming pool.
Chloe pulled so hard that she launched herself three feet into the air, into the blessedly warm night air. When she was completely clear, still aloft, she released the Alvalaithen, surrendering its power completely, letting the still-buried Auditor have it all. And then an instant later, as she came back down to the ground, Chloe went thin again, hard as she could, wrenching every bit of the Alvalaithen’s power back toward herself, calling on all her anger, all her fear, all her bitter sadness. The Alvalaithen was hers and no one else’s. This was the one thing she knew for sure, and armed with that sureness, she ripped the Alvalaithen’s power away from the Auditor. The Auditor, still underground, struggled to hold on but could not. Chloe swept over her, banishing her completely from the Alvalaithen once and for all.
“Mine!” Chloe bellowed, landing firm on solid ground again, her hands balled into fists, staring down into the earth at her feet.
And from that ground, a muted, muffled thump.
The forest went quiet, and she was alone.
Chloe breathed. She staggered back, releasing the Alvalaithen again. She fell against a tree, still staring at the ground. She’d cut the Auditor off—ousted her from the Alvalaithen—while she was still buried.
The Auditor was dead. Melded with the earth.
Chloe had killed her.
From farther back in the woods behind her, a long, high wail broke out, a keening cry that sounded like a siren filled with sand. One of the other Auditors, no doubt sensing what had just happened. But there was light spilling through the trees just ahead. April’s house. Chloe headed for it, running almost blind. She tripped over a tree root and tumbled painfully to the ground, skinning her knee. She got to her feet again and kept running. Blood trickled down her leg. It felt good.
A commotion broke out on the far side of the house. The dog was barking furiously, and then April shouted. Chloe raced on. She would go straight through the house and find them, and then—
It had been stupid of the Auditor to follow Chloe underground, to take that risk. The worst could have happened . . . and it did. Not Chloe’s fault. Not really. What did Brian’s shirt say today? BEWARE OF DANGER. It was hard to argue with that advice. Chloe was here to rescue her friends, and if the Riven wanted to stand in her way, then they were standing in a bad place. They were putting themselves in the path of danger, and they had only themselves to blame. It was as simple as that.
“Simple,” Chloe muttered, still running, nearly at the house now. “Not. My. Fault.”
WHEN DEREK TUMBLED out of the humour at Dr. Jericho’s feet, the Mordin struck like a snake, as if he’d been expecting it. He reached down and snatched Derek off the ground by the wrist, letting him dangle. April saw it all from Arthur’s vantage point atop the roof.
A split second later, the horrible sight was swept away. A wave of pressure briefly crushed her, head to toe, and then released. April understood at once what it was—the humour, blossoming instantaneously to full size. Through Arthur’s eyes, the entire backyard disappeared, like a drawing folded abruptly in two. Confusion. Disorientation. Arthur’s head darted to and fro, dizzying April.
Gabriel grabbed April’s hand and yanked her to her feet. “Move!” he shouted, tugging her through the humour so hard she thought her arm would come out of its socket. “We must get away.”
“Derek!” April cried, stumbling through the gray gloom. She struggled with Gabriel and at last broke free.
She heard a distant, watery voice. Not Derek. This voice was both thin and cruel, both musical and sinister. Dr. Jericho. She couldn’t make out the words, though. “What is he saying?” she asked.
Gabriel spoke reluctantly from the void. “He wants me to take down the humour. He says he—”
“Do it,” April said.
After a hesitation, the humour evaporated with a great tearing sound. Sights and sounds flooded over her—her own senses, all but forgotten. Dr. Jericho stood thirty feet away, still holding Derek aloft. He brother looked so small, so helpless. He grimaced in pain and shock.
The Mordin smiled. “Much better,” he said, locking eyes with April. Then his smile deepened to a savage grin. “Here we are, face-to-face again, but it seems you’ve changed. You’ve changed a great deal.”
Her missing piece. April was no longer broken, and the Mordin knew it. “That’s right,” she said. “Whatever you hoped to get from me before, it’s gone. I’m useless now.”
The Mordin laughed. “Far from useless,” he said. “More valuable than you know.”
A desperate scream cut through the night, a far-off wail of angry despair—the unmistakable voice of an Auditor. Dr. Jericho barely seemed to notice.
“Come with us,” the Mordin said to April, “and I’ll let your brother go. Come with us, and help us save the Tanu. We have much to learn from each other.”
Save the Tanu? April thought, and then a red-hot barrel of rage exploded in her head. Kill. Bite. Tear. A yellow streak tore across the yard, headed for Dr. Jericho, snapping and snarling.
Baron. April felt him leap from the ground, full of loyalty and rage, felt the deep satisfaction of sharp teeth sinking into foul flesh. She tasted blood in her mouth, coppery and warm.
The dog had Dr. Jericho by the arm. Derek, struggling, managed to wrench himself free. He fell to the ground and ran.
Dr. Jericho shook the furious dog off. “Baron, no!” April cried, as the dog rounded for another attack. This time as he leapt, the Mordin unleashed a furious backhanded swing with his mighty four-knuckled fist. The blow caught Baron across the ribs. April heard them crack through the dog’s ears, even as a lightning bolt of pain ripped across her own torso. Agony. Fear. Shame. The dog yelped and tumbled across the grass like he’d been shot.
Derek reached her and took her by the hand, his eyes wild with fear. Dr. Jericho turned toward them, a tower of rage. He took a long step—
And then the humour swallowed them all again.
“Follow me,” said Gabriel, taking April’s free hand once more. “I won’t let him find us.” This time April didn’t resist, dragging Derek with her through the void. She left herself open to Baron, basking in every inch of his pain, not wanting to spare herself the least bit. He was alive, struggling to get up, but the humour was making him mad, robbing him of all his precious senses—even smell.
“Use your Tan’ji only sparingly,” Gabriel said. “Dr. Jericho is trying to find us, and the raven’s eye has worn down.”
Reluctantly, April tried to pull herself away. She told herself Baron would be okay. Such a good dog. Such a brave dog.
“If you’re going to use your power, use it to guide us back to the driveway,” Gabriel said. “I haven’t had a chance to learn the lay of the land here, and Beck is coming. Beck will get us away.”
April was already looking. Arthur was aloft now, high over the house. The incredible rush of flight was like a universe of sensation compared to the unfeeling fog of the humour. She realized that the range of the Ravenvine had grown since it was repaired—Arthur was a hundred feet up, at least, and she now had a literal bird’s-eye view of the house and its surroundings.
She spotted the unseeable wrinkle in the yard that indicated the humour, sliding slowly. “Turn right,” she said. “Go between the house and the trees.” They moved on. The wrinkle shifted direction. And then, abruptly, Baron popped into view. He was limping away. Through the vine she felt a burst of relief from the dog, but she couldn’t risk trying to hear more. She wasn’t up in the sky; she was here in the humour with Gabriel and Derek, and Dr. Jericho was with them, searching for them. She could hear his sinister voice, calling to them, but Gabriel was keeping it muted.
She stumb
led on. It was hard work moving your body when your eyes belonged to someone else. Through those airborne eyes, meanwhile, one side of the farmhouse was simply absent, swallowed by the humour as they moved toward the driveway. But now on the opposite side, she caught sight of a sprinting figure, streaking toward the house—an Auditor, running fast. With a shock, April watched as the Auditor plunged straight through the wall of the house like a ghost.
“Chloe is here,” she said, understanding at once. “In the house, I think—but an Auditor is after her.”
“Chloe can take care of herself,” said Gabriel. “Keep moving. Dr. Jericho is behind us.”
“Uncle Harrison is in the house,” Derek said. “Will he be safe?”
April stumbled again. Uncle Harrison—she’d forgotten him. “No,” she said thickly. “Not safe, no more than you were.” The Riven would use her family to get to April. And then she remembered the third Mordin, creeping up onto the back porch. They had to get Uncle Harrison out of there. Now.
Arthur wheeled about on a thermal, rising higher. April’s view shifted. “Oh,” she cried as a jab of recognition hit the bird, a familiar knot of puzzlement. Neptune was floating above the house. She was descending toward the humour, obviously knowing it was there. And beyond her, down the long driveway, a sight April could never have seen with her own eyes. A rising plume of dust, moving toward the house. A car was barreling down the driveway.
“Beck,” she said. “Beck is coming.”
CHLOE BROKE OUT of the woods and angled across the front lawn at a full run, headed for the boxy old farmhouse where April lived.
She didn’t hesitate. She didn’t even slow. She leapt up and went thin in midair, ghosting through the front corner of the house. She emerged into a dimly lit room, and when she landed—her feet already primed to refuse the wooden floor—she hit a loose rug and slipped, upending. She fell backward into the ashy pit of a fireplace for a moment before springing back out and righting herself. She let go of the Alvalaithen’s song. She went still. She listened.
