When he spoke again, he seemed to have channeled Heidi’s icy fire.
“I would very much like for you to hand over Decidian’s Spear and Feruiduin’s Cutlass.”
“I have half a mind to slice your head off right where you stand,” Heidi sneered.
“And then you’ll be pounded into mincemeat by my army,” he said, surprisingly calm.
“Worth it,” Heidi muttered. But she made no move to carry out her threat.
“What do you even want them for?” I asked. Stupid question, obvious answer. But I needed time—time to think my way out of this mess.
“The same as you; the Chalice Gloria, of course.” His nostrils flared with irritation. “You might be the youngest Brand, but you’re not that idiotic to think you’re the only person on this quest, are you?” He rose—and the question seemed to have set something off, because as he began a short back-and-forth stomp, the words continued to spill out of him.
“I spent so long on research, all this time, and finally find the entrance only for a Brand to get there first! Then you just make off with it, and the one orc who actually has a chance at stopping you—”
Burbondrer, I realized, but Borrick was past it, thought unfinished.
“So we move to head you off at Feruiduin’s Cutlass, thinking we’d separate you and the spear before you opened the gate—and we’re still too slow!” He curled his hand into a fist, and slammed it against a pillar.
Then his eyes were on me, seething.
The fist shook at his side.
He was going to hit me.
But he didn’t. Instead he stepped close again, looking down on me with just as much anger and hate as I tried to channel into staring back up at him.
“I’m not a bad person, you know,” he said. A calmer note crept into his words now. “We’re just two sides of the same coin, searching for the same prize. That’s all. And … tell me, Mira.” He crouched, looking deep into my eyes. “If it was wrenched from you when you were so close, you would fight for it. Wouldn’t you? You’d do everything in your power to take it back?”
I didn’t answer.
He rose.
“I’m not a bad person,” he repeated.
Not buying it.
“I’ll make it easy,” he continued. “Your friend—Carson, is it?—in exchange for the spear and the cutlass.”
My breath caught. “If I don’t—what will you—?”
“He’ll be harmed,” Borrick said shortly.
Damn it. I should have cut him loose.
“What do you say to that?” Borrick asked. “Your lives—plus his, of course—in exchange for your artifacts. I’d say that’s fair. Wouldn’t you?” He asked this of an orc nearby, who responded with a nod. To another, he repeated, “Wouldn’t you say so?” A second nod came back to him.
He squatted again. Came closer. Closer.
I tightened my hand on Decidian’s Spear.
The toe of his boot covered its shaft.
“Carson for the artifacts,” he whispered, face so near I could feel his breath on my cheek. “A simple trade. What do you s—?”
“MIRA, MOVE!”
Heidi snatched something from her pocket, and threw it at her feet. It exploded in a shower of light, flying like sparks—
I shoved up in an instant, lifting the spear, shoving Borrick in the chest—he shouted, and an arm swam out to get me. It sailed past my leg, flailing blindly in the light—
Then Heidi had her hand on me, and was pulling me—
“Where?”
“The ladder!”
We staggered—an orc roared, close by, and I dodged its grabbing fist—
Then the short-lived explosion of light was gone.
We were right on the precipice. Heidi ran out first.
Just walking on top of monkey bars! That’s all!
I followed.
“AFTER THEM!” Borrick shrieked.
Orcs blundered after us.
I picked up my feet. “Do not look down!”
From ahead, Heidi called back, “Still don’t want to risk the ice?”
“No!”
“Then hang on!”
Heidi sliced Feruiduin’s Cutlass in a low arc.
Out here, there was no magical resistance. The blade cut smoothly through the ladder—
I started to scream. “What are you—?”
“Getting us out of here!”
The ladder split clean in a horizontal line—
Without anything to hold it, our end sagged, dragged down by our weight, platform side still held firmly in place.
I dropped toward it, grabbing with my free hand for a rung, gripping, screaming as we descended like a pendulum—
“GATEWAY!” Heidi roared.
But to do that I’d have to let go!
The ladder swung to its lowest point—
Upended, we shrieked, falling—I squeezed tight to the last rung, catching a terrifying momentary glimpse of the black abyss swirling hungrily—
Then we were rising on the second half of its swing, and the tall pillar upon which the platform was erected was swinging to meet us—
With it came our only guaranteed path to London.
I closed my eyes—I couldn’t believe I was doing this—and released, flying through empty air. One hand clutched my talisman; the other, still gripping Decidian’s Spear, swiped desperately ahead of me as I sailed, and Heidi flew alongside me, roaring as thunder split the air with a deafening peal, and orcs loosed angry battle cries as their quarry slipped away, and the hungry darkness below came ever closer as we dropped—
The gateway burst open on the pillar. I had a fraction of a second to hope, pray, that we wouldn’t miss—
And then I was weightless, shrouded in a cocoon of vibrant light.
26
Twilight had descended over London by the time we returned to Tortilla, and stepped through to my hideout.
Neither of us had said a word on the way here, just walked in stunned silence.
Though it had only been … four hours? Five? since I’d last stepped foot in here, it felt like so much more. So much had changed.
I bustled into the kitchen without saying anything. My cheap energy drink still pressed into my hip. I pulled it out and stowed it in the strange fridge, which made me think of exploded, oversized and rearranged mechanisms of a watch. It hummed along, the interior light flickering. So empty.
I shuffled to the counter. Glass in hand, I was about to fill it—and stopped.
Carson.
I closed my eyes, leaning on the countertop, head in my hands. His face came back time and time again. That first nervous look he’d given me outside Piccadilly Circus, trying to force friendliness in the face of his fear at being in a new place—at going it alone, without the people he loved. The fear when the Order of Apdau had chased us into the under-construction building down the block, and I hustled him behind me on the stairs to keep him safe. Hurt, at my barbs, and Heidi’s, delivered without diplomacy. Determination, when he swung his satchel in Russell Square, and again as Alain Borrick’s army descended on us. And concern, for me, on the platform housing Feruiduin’s Cutlass. Because in spite of all the terror I’d led him into, and all my snapping, all my effort to shove every flaw he had in front of his nose, for all of my outright nastiness to this man—in spite of all that, he was a good person.
Now Borrick’s army had him.
And it was my fault.
Heidi sauntered in behind me, but stopped in the doorway.
For the first time, she spoke.
“What’s up? I thought you’d be happy. You got the cutlass.”
“I don’t deserve it,” I mumbled.
The room was quiet, the only sound between us the hum of my steampunk fridge.
“Come on, Mira,” Heidi said, voice bright. “Of course you deserve it. You found an object that has been lost for centuries. Two of them. And now the Chalice Gloria—it’s yours!” She stepped for me, touched
a hand to my shoulder.
I shrugged out of it, turning on her. My eyes flashed, equals parts anger and anguish.
“What?” she asked. “Why’re you looking at me like that?”
“Carson got taken because of me.”
Disbelief sent Heidi’s eyebrows twitching together. “What’s the problem? You wanted him gone. You said it yourself. Now he’s out of your hair.”
“I wanted him to go back to his tour of London,” I snapped back. “Not be held hostage by orcs in a world he has no way out of!”
“Borrick is a Seeker too; he and his army can travel just the same as we can. And once they see that Carson is just as useless as a bargaining chip as he is as a sidekick, they’ll let him go.”
“You don’t seriously believe that, do you?”
Heidi floundered. Just for a moment—she was far too collected in general to become stuck for more than a second—but the truth was blatant on her face. She knew Alain Borrick. And if she didn’t, she had heard his response when asked what would happen to Carson: He’ll be harmed.
“Mira,” she began heavily. “I was on that very same platform as you this afternoon. I heard you talk about your family life. And even if I hadn’t … do you think I wouldn’t know? You’re a Brand. This is in your blood. Decidian’s Spear, Feruiduin’s Cutlass, the Chalice Gloria … those things are your calling, just like a thousand Seekers before you. You can’t be suggesting that you’ll give it up for some guy you met on a train.”
“I didn’t meet him on a train,” I murmured.
“You’ve only known him a day!”
“That doesn’t matter!” I cried, voice shrill. It echoed out the door, bouncing around the library between untold numbers of books.
Heidi quieted. Watching. Waiting.
“If I’d known him an hour, a day, a month, or a year, the fact remains: I got Carson caught up in this mess. I’ve got to get him out of it. Even if that means …”
I didn’t finish.
In the quiet, Heidi finished for me.
“Alain wants the spear and the cutlass,” she said softly. “If you want to save Carson, if you play by his rules … everything you said to Carson, about your family pressuring you—you kiss goodbye to all of that.” Words hard, she said, “You fail, Mira.”
“And I prove them right,” I murmured. “I show them that I’m not a true Seeker. Just like they said.”
All this research, all this time—if I went back for Carson, the whole thing was over. I passed victory into Borrick’s hands—and Mira Brand, the child, would leave empty-handed. The ultimate chance to prove myself, to the world, to them—evaporated, gone in a puff of smoke.
I’d come so far. It had taken it out of me in a way I hadn’t realized—and faced with a fridge that was perpetually almost empty, I was forced to admit that I had only just been scraping by. But I had found Decidian’s Spear before anyone—and Feruiduin’s Cutlass too, damn it! I had both the keys needed to retrieve the Chalice Gloria, and walk out triumphant—
And now I was considering giving it all up?
I couldn’t. Surely I couldn’t.
But then Carson’s face swam in my mind’s eye again. His hand on my shoulder as he stooped beside me when I came apart after the bridge. Queasy, yes, but riddled with worry nevertheless. And then his admission beside the pedestal: that his parents were gone.
He was alone in the world.
That was why he’d reached out for me. Not for travel recommendations—or maybe not entirely. He was a lost soul, cast out and wandering—and wasn’t I, too? Maybe he felt it in me as we clambered the stairs out of the Underground, some ethereal thing that could not be touched or seen. He had reached out, nervous and awkward and uncomfortable though he might be; he had overcome all that to prove something. To be something.
Just like me.
“I’m sorry, Heidi,” I said. “I’ve come a long way on this journey … but some things are more important.”
Her brow creased. “What are you saying?”
I took a steeling breath.
Had to say it out loud.
Cement it.
“I’m rescuing Carson Yates,” I said firmly. “And if that means giving up the Chalice Gloria … then so be it.”
27
“You’re not serious. You can’t be. There’s no way—for Carson? Look, Borrick sucks, but, I mean … I don’t think he’ll do anything fatal … “
Apparently, under duress, Heidi Luo resorted to the same kind of babbling that Carson did.
“I am deadly serious. One hundred percent.” And it was true. I didn’t like it, necessarily—chucking away everything you’d worked for at the drop of a hat was probably not something anyone got to immediate grips with. But after saying it aloud, my resolution grew. “I have to do this. It’s the only thing that’s right.”
“Carson?” Heidi repeated. “Carson Yates?”
Despite myself, my exhaustion, Carson’s life dangling by a thread, I couldn’t help but laugh. “Yes, Carson Yates. He of avocado sweater fame.”
“I’m sorry,” said Heidi. “You’ve got to walk me through this. Just today, this morning in fact, you laid into him within just ten minutes of us crossing paths. Remember that? On the tube?”
“I was tired. Stressed. And I am aware that’s no excuse, by the way. But even if I hadn’t been, why would it matter? Carson’s in danger, it’s my fault, and I also have the means to save him.”
“You likened spending time with him to babysitting.”
“Yeah, well, I guess if I’d been thrown into worlds full of monsters and was pursued by creeps in cloaks on my first day in London, I’d react poorly too.” Eyebrows knitting, I went on, “And what’s up with you, anyway? When we first met, you at least fought in Carson’s corner. Within a couple of hours you went all ice queen, and now you’re suggesting we let the orcs eat him?”
Heidi straightened. She turned her nose up, expression cold. “His glaring failures became apparent to me, just like they did to you. And I don’t have time to play around with failure.” If she weren’t wearing my ancient band t-shirt and a pair of dark, creased jeans that were too baggy on her tiny frame, she’d have looked very much the stereotypical popular high-school girl, looking down on some well-meaning misfit. Except, you know, Asian instead of blonde, or whatever.
“He’s a write-off, Mira,” she continued, “plain and simple.”
“A write-off?” I asked, incredulous—and not just at Heidi, but at me, too, because hadn’t this been my opinion of him just six hours ago? “He may stutter, and be scared, and hold onto that stupid manbag of his like it’s the only thing keeping me from floating away from this world. But he’s brave, too!”
“How is he brave?!”
“The Order of Apdau set upon us in Russell Square. We were outnumbered, and whereas I had a spear, he had nothing to protect himself from those cinquedeas they carry. And still he came to my rescue.”
“By swinging a satchel.”
“What does that matter? If anything, it makes him braver! I don’t know about the world you live in, but in mine, canvas doesn’t hold up so hot against knives, Heidi! And again, in the temple. He held off the orcs alongside the two of us, and gave it just as good as we did.”
“Not good enough,” she pointed out through tight lips. “He got carried off, didn’t he? This is his own fault, really.”
“We got overrun. Only by sheer luck did we escape. It could easily have been us in his shoes.”
Heidi’s lips grew thinner still. She folded her arms. For her minute build, she looked like a sullen teenager with poor fashion sense.
“How do we even find him?” she muttered at last, glancing at me. “We don’t know where Borrick took him.”
Or if he was even still alive, after our get-away.
I stymied that thought. He had to be. He was a bargaining chip. Bargaining chips didn’t just get tossed away the moment the enemy made a clutch escape.
“He knows
I’m looking for the Chalice Gloria,” I said. “And he knows I have the keys to get it.” I patted the umbrella I’d shoved into my pocket, bright yellow and red canvas sticking out.
Feruiduin’s Cutlass had been a little less subtle in its transformation. On our exit alongside the Thames, it had turned into a Bluetooth speaker. Awkward and bulky, and undoubtedly even more ridiculous if I tried to fix the thing to my belt, it had ridden in my lap on the tube ride to the Strand. Luckily, only one teenaged boy, probably my age or a bit younger, had been kind enough to say, “Nice boombox, love,” as he sidled past me to his seat, to the great amusement of his three friends.
The speaker sat on the countertop now, sleek and black and unassuming. Both our eyes traveled across it.
“Stupid glamour,” Heidi said, appraising it flatly. “It could at least turn itself into an iPhone or something useful. Or something that looks less stupid to carry around London.” Then she conceded, after what looked like a very torn moment: “At least if Carson were here he could shove this stupid thing in that bloody bag of his.”
My heart skipped. Yes. She wasn’t a totally lost cause. Because I would do it alone, absolutely I would—but that didn’t mean I wanted to. Not this time.
“Please do this with me,” I asked. “You know it’s the right thing to do.”
“And just let Borrick make off with the Chalice Gloria?”
“Last time we were here, we agreed. Right in this very room, in fact. The Chalice Gloria, as well as the artifacts needed to gain entry to it, is mine. That means if I choose to give it up—to let Alain Borrick have it in exchange for Carson—then you have to go along with it.” Technically not, perhaps, but I’d like to see a lawyer argue that one.
Heidi considered for a long time. Too long, almost.
Then, at last, she sighed. Slumping against the doorframe, she raked fingers through her black hair.
All at once she looked very tired.
“You didn’t finish your thought a moment ago. How do we find him?”
“Borrick’s been researching the Chalice Gloria too, right?”
“So he says.”
The World Beneath (The Mira Brand Adventures Book 1) Page 17
