Until she reached for the knob.
There was an ear-splitting crack, and the door’s wood planks buckled and warped before Rook’s eyes. Nails popped, raining down on the cobblestones. The ones that stayed in place strained to hold the door together. Luckily, the magic was stubborn, and Rook’s will was strong.
When the sounds died away, the door before them was still a door, but only just. It had twisted into a crude S shape, some of the planks wrenching free of their nails and jutting out in all directions. The hinges were bent beyond recognition. Rook didn’t think she or anyone else would ever be able to open the mangled door.
“We can’t do this,” Rook whispered. “I mean, look at it.” It wasn’t a door anyone should ever have to walk through. It was just…wrong.
“Don’t let it frighten you,” Dozana said kindly. “What you’re seeing are traces of animus on the other side pushing back against the door, cracking and twisting it. All the more reason we need to get the magic out of there.”
With shaking hands, Rook took hold of the knob—it was hot to the touch, almost too hot to hold—and wrenched the door open.
The first thing she noticed on the other side was the color of the sky. It was red, but not the warm, golden glow of a sunset over the harbor. This was a dull, heavy red, like blood dripping from raw meat. The color made it impossible to tell whether it was day or night inside the Wasteland. It was more like a perpetual ugly twilight.
The second thing Rook noticed was that it was raining beyond the door. Everywhere else in Regara the sky was calm, the air warm and humid, but not over the Wasteland. Large, dark drops splashed and ran in oily puddles. It didn’t smell like a normal rain either, the kind that washed the world and glistened on the grass and leaves. This rain carried the distinct smell of decay.
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.
“Let’s go,” Captain Hardwick said grimly, pushing past Rook to take the lead. “Wizard, stay close to the children. My men, bring up the rear. Everyone, be alert.”
Forcing her feet to move, Rook crossed the door’s threshold as lightning split the sky overhead, throwing distorted shadows across the gray wall. Thunder followed in a rumble that she felt all the way to the soles of her feet.
When they were all on the other side of the door, Dozana pushed it closed, and Rook reluctantly let the magic slip away. She wanted to feel the safety of the city one last time, but it was too late. The door wedged into place with a groan and then faded, protruding nails and all.
ROOK SENSED THE MAGIC IN the air as they traversed the Wasteland. The pure, uncontrolled animus was all around them, invisible, but she was as sure of its existence as she was of the wind lashing them. It blew her hair back, chilled her skin, and rattled the leafless, gnarled trees that grew from the shells of buildings and cracked city streets.
“Look at that!” Drift pointed to a wrought-iron fence a few feet off to their left. The house behind it had been reduced to nothing more than a pile of stones, but sections of the fence remained intact. Coiling around its black bars was a green vine as thick as Rook’s thigh. It had grown so tall that the tip of the vine was suspended twenty feet in the air, where it had wrapped itself around the wheels of a full-size wagon. The wagon now hung upside down from the vine like an oversized grape. It swayed back and forth in the wind, creaking and groaning as if it might snap off at any moment.
Fox growled and sniffed along the base of the vine. He sneezed, rubbed his nose with a paw, and backed up, obviously not liking whatever it was he smelled. A shadow jumped from his body, and they stood back to back, their mirrored selves sniffing the air, ears twitching as if they expected something to leap out from behind the piles of stone.
“Good idea,” Rook told him. “Doesn’t hurt to have eyes in the back of your head.”
“Keep moving,” Hardwick said.
They cut a wide path around the suspended wagon, but Rook couldn’t help staring up at it as they moved past. She wondered who the vehicle had belonged to and where they were now, if they had survived the explosion.
She was just about to turn away when suddenly the end of the vine stiffened and curled in on itself, snapping the spokes of the wagon wheels one by one.
“Look out!” Dozana shouted from behind them.
With the spokes gone, the vine uncurled, and with nothing to hold it, the wagon fell, smashing to the ground in a ruined heap. Rook and the others scrambled out of the way of the flying debris. When she looked back at the vine, Rook saw that its tip was now straight and sharp like a spear. Before she could call out a warning, it shot straight toward the group.
Rook dove aside as the vine stabbed the broken street next to her, sending stones flying. Drift launched herself into the air, while Fox howled and shed two more shadows to bark and bite at the length of vine coiled around the wrought-iron fence. Hardwick and his men charged forward, drawing their knives and putting themselves between Rook and the stabbing spear.
“Keep the children safe!” Hardwick ordered. He slashed at the vine with his knife, severing its tip. The vine recoiled and shot into the air as if it had actually felt the wound. The other two men went for the base, hacking and stabbing at the plant.
Rook scrambled to her feet to find Dozana next to her. “Are you all right?” the woman asked, concern darkening her eyes.
“I’m fine,” Rook said. “I just—”
But she never got to finish. A tickling sensation brushed her ankle, and Rook looked down in horror to see a thinner vine coiling around her leg. It stretched and cracked like a whip, yanking her into the air upside down.
“Rook!” Dozana screamed. She grabbed Rook’s hand, trying to pull her from the vine’s grip. Rook strained to hold on, but the oily rain made it impossible. Her fingers slipped from Dozana’s grasp, and suddenly she was weightless, flung into the sky like a rag doll on a string.
“Help me!” Rook shouted. The ground and the sky blurred as the vine swung her back and forth. She flailed her arms, reaching for something, anything that would make the sickening motion stop and release her from the pressure of the vine squeezing her leg.
“Cut it at the base!” Hardwick and his men were shouting. All the blood had rushed to Rook’s face, and she was so dizzy she was afraid she might pass out. She tried to reach up and untangle the vine wrapped around her leg, but it had her in a death grip. Below her, Fox and his shadows howled in a frightened chorus.
“Rook, hold on!” shouted a voice close by.
Rook turned her head and caught a streak of motion as Drift flew past her. Her friend twisted in midair, reaching for Rook’s hand. Rook met her halfway, but just as quickly, the vine ripped her out of reach. Rain dripped down Rook’s face. She scrubbed it away and looked down to see Hardwick and the others clustered around the base of the vine, hacking and chopping furiously.
“We’ve almost got it!” Dozana cried.
They were right. A tremor rippled through the plant, and the vine holding Rook’s leg loosened. Rook gasped, dropping several feet before the plant caught her again. She was at least thirty feet in the air now, and the ground looked so very far away.
“Um, maybe we should wait until it decides to lower me a few feet!” Rook shouted at the group below, but none of them could hear her over the rain and howling wind.
“Got it!” Hardwick shouted, seconds before the vine stiffened and whipped violently from side to side, knocking Rook back and forth like a pendulum.
And then it let go.
THE FORCE OF THE VINE’S swing launched Rook into the air. There was a terrifying instant of out-of-control spinning, her stomach heaving…and then a weight slammed into her. Hands locked around her waist and buoyed her on a sudden, fierce wind that blew the rain sideways into her eyes.
“Drift!” Rook cried, for even blinded, she knew her friend had caught her. Drift was always there to catch her.
/> “I’ve got you!” She was out of breath, soaked to the skin just like Rook. The wind steadied, and Drift angled them toward the ground. As soon as Rook’s feet touched the broken pavement, Fox bounded up and pressed his wet muzzle into her shoulder. She wrapped her arms around him and held on.
“Are you all right?” Dozana asked, coming over to them. Hardwick and his men were busy slicing the monstrous vine up into pieces too small to attack.
“I think so,” Rook said. She released Fox and reached down to pull up her pant leg. There was a long red mark where the vine had squeezed her, but the pain and dizziness of being swung around like a toy were slowly fading. She looked up at Drift, who was wringing rainwater out of her clothes. “Thank you,” she said.
Drift nodded, but her mouth was pressed into a line and she was so pale Rook thought she might faint. “I can’t believe this,” she said, raising her voice so Hardwick and his men could hear her. “We’re in the Wasteland five minutes and the weeds are trying to kill us! What’s going to happen when we get inside the red heartstone wall? That’s where the magic is going to be strongest, right? Around the ruins of the portal site?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Hardwick said, sheathing his knife and kicking aside a clump of vine. “Get yourself together,” he told Rook. “It’s time to move.”
Now Drift’s face was turning red, her hands shaking as she stalked over to the captain. “In case you weren’t paying attention, my friend was almost killed just now! The least you can do is let us rest for a minute!”
The captain’s stony expression didn’t change. “The longer we stay here, the more chance there is we’ll be attacked by something even more dangerous.”
“Much as I hate to admit it, the captain’s right,” Dozana said. She put a hand on Drift’s shoulder, which seemed to calm her a bit. “You did very well, Daughter, but we need to be even more careful from now on. I’m afraid it was no accident the vine went after Rook and not the rest of us.”
“Why’s that?” The man with the crescent scars glared at Dozana, his dark eyes suspicious. “You holding something back, Voran?”
Dozana flashed him a smile of narrowed eyes and many teeth. “I wasn’t sure until just now, but I believe Rook may have greater stores of animus inside her than any of the rest of us,” she said. “That’s what the vine was drawn to—the strength of her magic.”
“You mean the same way magic sucks people in and turns them into Frenzied?” asked the other constable. He had hazel eyes and a nose that had been broken so many times it had given up trying.
“The result is the same,” Dozana said, “in that the subject’s behavior turns violent, but we don’t know what makes people fall to the Frenzy or why only a small number are affected. The animus is an easier force to understand. It feeds on itself and grows stronger.”
Wonderful, Rook thought as the weight of that knowledge settled on her shoulders. Now she was a magnet for dangerous magic, and it was only going to get worse the longer they remained in the Wasteland.
Hardwick didn’t look happy to hear Dozana’s theory either. “Jace,” he said, pointing to the scarred man, “stay close to Rook. Garrett, you keep an eye on the other two. The wizard can use her defenses to guard us all. Let’s move out.”
It was only when Hardwick mentioned it that Rook remembered Dozana’s power. Why hadn’t she brought it to bear on the vine to weaken it? Did it only work on humans? Or was she saving her power for when they were inside the red heartstone wall?
Rook let her questions go for the moment to concentrate on the walk ahead of them. Hardwick kept them on as straight a path as possible going east, but their pace was slowed by the overgrown plants and debris piled in their path. Thankfully, the rain eventually slowed to a light drizzle, and in the distance, they could just make out their destination: a ten-foot wall of copper-colored stones, illuminated by periodic lightning flashes. They were too far away to see many details, but even so, Rook thought there was something strange about the barrier, though she couldn’t say exactly what it was.
Ahead of her, Drift quickened her pace until she fell into step beside Dozana. Her expression was a mix of longing and determination. Rook crept forward to get within earshot.
“M-Mother,” Drift was saying, her voice tentative, apologetic, “there’s still so much I don’t remember. I mean…I don’t remember anything.”
Dozana smiled sadly and stroked Drift’s wet hair. “It’s all right,” she said. “For now, it’s enough that I have you with me again. I’ve missed you so much, my dear.”
Drift leaned into the affectionate touch. Watching them, Rook felt that same pang in her chest, but sharper this time, lingering like a wound.
“But how are you here?” Drift pressed, still as full of questions as Rook. “I thought all the wizards went back through the portal before the explosion.”
“Not all of them,” Dozana replied. “Some even came here in secret and stayed.”
“Why?” Rook spoke up before she could stop herself.
Dozana didn’t seem surprised that Rook had been eavesdropping. “To escape the wars,” she said soberly.
“Wars?” Drift echoed. “When were the Vorans at war?”
“When weren’t we?” Dozana countered. She laughed without humor. “I’m happy you don’t remember, child. Our people fought over so many things—who should own the land, who should be a king, but mostly who should control all the magic in the world—including the magical portal to Talhaven. It’s possible to heal from wars fought over the first two. But wars fought over magic, using magic…” There was a haunted expression in her eyes. “They cause nothing but devastation. Destruction you can’t ever recover from. You just have to run.”
A prickle of understanding touched Rook’s mind. “Is that what caused the portal explosion?” she asked. “Fighting over it with magic? Is that why our people sent the children through first? Because they wanted us to run away?”
The group halted briefly while Hardwick and Jace kicked aside the skeleton of a dead horse that lay in their path. Rook tried not to look at its bleached white skull as she passed.
She held her breath as she waited to hear Dozana’s answer to her question. It was so strange. She should have been angry at being kidnapped, at seeing her dearest friends put in danger. She should have been terrified of the Wasteland they walked through. She was soaked and miserable, her teeth chattering from the chill in the air and the fear churning inside her.
But at that moment, none of it mattered. Dozana could answer the questions that had been piling up in the hearts of every exile in Talhaven. Questions weighing on them so heavily that some nights they could barely breathe.
Who am I?
Where do I come from?
Why was I abandoned here?
“That’s exactly what happened,” Dozana said, bringing Rook back to herself. The woman’s eyes continuously scanned the ground while she spoke, as if she was on the lookout for more plants that might attack them. “Our leaders had gotten wind that a large revolt was brewing, so all the Vorans were recalled from Talhaven to help defend Cherith, the city on the Voran side of the portal. It hardly made a difference. Rival wizards launched a surprise attack on the city, and the results were devastating. We had only minutes to gather as many of our children as we could and put them on a ship. There were so many left behind.” Dozana’s voice cracked, and she quickly cleared her throat. “The children were sent through the portal to safety, while their parents stayed behind and used their collective magic to shield the ship and cover its escape before the city was destroyed. But no one predicted that the magical chaos would travel through the portal, destroying it and a portion of Regara. That’s what caused the Great Catastrophe.”
“But how can you know for sure that’s what happened, if you were living here in secret?” Drift asked.
Dozana rai
sed an eyebrow at her. “I never said I was living here. I said other wizards were—and might still be, although if they’re smart, they’ll be deep in hiding. I know what I know because I was on the ship with the children when they came through the portal. I was tasked with being their protector.”
Rook felt like her world had been turned upside down. Their families had sent the exiles away to save them from a catastrophe that had destroyed a city, then reached between worlds and wrecked part of another. And Dozana had been with them the whole time. Her existence must have been wiped away with all Rook’s other memories.
The thought tied another knot in her stomach, but a sudden change in the landscape distracted her. After having trudged down one broken street after another, they were now hiking through a wild clover patch, but it was unlike any clover Rook had ever seen. It was purple and grew as tall as her waist in places. It sprang from the base of what had once been one of the city wells but was now little more than a stone ring in the ground.
And then there were the floating stones.
Dozens of them, some small as her fist, others as big as her head, all of them frozen in the air above the clover patch. Rook might have been more shocked at the strange sight if she hadn’t just been used as a juggling toy by a monstrous vine.
Hardwick raised his hand for the group to stop. “What is this, wizard?” he demanded. Rook didn’t think she’d ever heard him call Dozana by her name.
Dozana waded into the clover patch but stopped short of walking among the hovering stones. She reached out and tapped one of the smaller ones lightly with her finger, but it didn’t move. It was stuck, hovering in midair. She nodded, muttering something to herself.
“What did you say?” Hardwick asked.
“I believe it’s a time distortion,” Dozana said, pitching her voice so the whole group could hear.
The Door to the Lost Page 11
