by K. Ferrin
She spun and dove downward, arms stretched in front of her. Almost instantly they came into contact with a hard, unforgiving surface. She blindly ran her hands up and down the structure, shoving and kicking, but she was trapped.
Fear beat at her. She couldn’t understand what had happened, what held her. She thought maybe she’d triggered some magical trap Grag had set before he’d left, but she couldn’t help wondering if this was something or someone else. An image of Fariss, pulled from the grimoire, hung in her mind. She pictured him stroking the purple gem wedged in his chin as he watched her float by beneath him, a tight smile curving his lips.
It was him. It had to be. He had followed her up here—or had he been here all along, trap set, waiting until she triggered it? Or maybe it was Alyssum, that strangely beautiful woman with talons at the tips of her fingers and fine golden scaling. Alyssum had been the first to show an interest in her. Perhaps she had simply bidden her time, a spider waiting patiently at the center of its web.
Ling couldn’t see anything in the inky blackness. She couldn’t feel anything either. As far as she could tell, she hung suspended in water, inside some container that itself seemed suspended in the pond. Her lungs screamed, begging for breath. She pushed back the panic, forcing herself to think rationally. The first time she’d gone out on a boat with her father, he had taught her that panic meant death. You can think yourself out of a tight spot, he’d say. But you can’t think if you panic.
She took hold of herself, of her fear, and thought through her situation. She was not human. She didn’t breathe. She opened her lips, letting the cool water rush into her mouth, then breathed in. She knew she was in water, but she only felt what she remembered breathing to be like. The gentle rush of coolness into her chest, the expansion of her lungs and ribs, and the slow collapse of an exhale.
A sudden lurch finally offered proof of movement. She was thrust toward her left, the water sloshing roughly as the container she was held in was shoved in what felt to be random directions. The erratic movement ceased, replaced with a methodical rocking that reminded her of walking. It felt as if her container had been hauled up out of the water and was now being carried across the landscape.
The gentle rocking movement continued for a while before she was jostled one last time and things stilled. She waited, hands fanning the water around her as she floated in darkness. There was a creak, a tilt, and then a headlong spin.
The container groaned and bounced violently as it spun around and around and around. Ling was thrown about the inside of the container, water sloshing chaotically. Her head spun, and she felt like throwing up. Had they pushed her over the side of the mountain? She imagined the two days of climbing it had taken her to get to the summit from the ship, the enormous boulders that had littered the mountainside. Rolling down the mountain would be far faster than walking, if she weren’t annihilated against one of those stones.
She screamed as she was thrown against the walls of her prison. Her mind flashed back to the deadly grip of the river after the Scarlet Float had gone under. Stars danced in her head, and she heaved, though there was nothing in her belly to vomit up.
Incredibly, the stopping was worse than the spinning. The container hit something immovable, and she slammed face first into the wall. She felt her nose break, and pain blossomed across the center of her face. Then all was still. In the silence she waited, hands and feet braced for more violent movement. She sobbed into the darkness.
The container moved again, gently this time, and then again came to a rest. Eventually she could feel a mild rocking, and she realized she was aboard a boat once again. She wondered frantically where she was. There had been no other docking point—she had looked down every side of that mountain. She had to be at the same place she’d docked with Mercer. Was she on the Mincon? It seemed possible, even probable, but she couldn’t believe Mercer would betray her like that. He had clearly been on the side of the Mari.
But the grimoire had contained terrible information about Fariss. His skill and fascination with cutting things up, studying their insides. He was Tovenveran, skilled in forcing things to behave against their very natures. As much as she disliked the idea, Ling had to admit he may have used his magic on Mercer. She had no idea if it worked like that, but she had to at least consider it. She pushed her ear against the edge of her cage, but could hear nothing of worth. Forcing herself to relax, she allowed herself to float freely in her prison of water. She wrapped her hands around the grimoire bag still slung across her chest.
Hours passed, and she stifled a yawn, feeling tired for the first time since entering the cave. She kept her hold on the grimoire, the sole source of her memories. She had it, though it began to dawn on her that it wouldn’t do her much good. There would be no reading in the murky darkness of the container. No writing either. She would fall asleep and wake up in this cage with no memory of how she came to be here. Fear exploded in her belly and traveled like lightening through her entire body. She opened her mouth and screamed.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Evelyn smiled as she slowly came awake. Today was going to be a good day. The entire summer stretched ahead of her, no school and endless hours of warm summer sun. She would stop at Miss Tansey’s to get a sweet roll, then head over to the flower shop to see if Rudy would do an arrangement for her to paint.
She opened her eyes to find darkness so thick she might as well have been blind. She used to sleepwalk a lot as a child, waking to find herself in all sorts of odd places. She hadn’t done it in ages, but she must have done it last night.
She reached out tentatively, seeking the edges of her surroundings. Her hand moved, but the air didn’t seem quite right. It felt sluggish and heavy as if she were waving her hand through bath water. Her elbow was still slightly bent when she encountered a hard surface. Her fingers traveled over its face as she tried to figure out where she might be. The surface felt metallic, was about as long as she was tall, and continued in a smooth arc all the way around.
I am in a sphere.
She wracked her mind trying to imagine where she might be, but there were no metallic spheres anywhere in her house—or anywhere in Meuse, as far as she knew. She ran her hands along her own body, again wondering at the sluggishness of her movements.
I am dreaming.
She held her breath, listening, but she couldn’t hear anything. She was rocking slightly in a regular, rhythmic motion that reminded her of sailing on the river with her father. She’d gone to sleep in her own bed last night, of that she was certain. Had she wandered down to the docks and somehow gotten trapped in the hold of one of her father’s boats? She reached up to run her fingers through her hair, and she felt it fan out around her as if she were bobbing in the Meuse River on a warm day. With dawning horror, she realized she was actually in water herself.
I am definitely dreaming.
She was breathing and had been since she’d first opened her eyes to this darkness. Despite how real everything seemed, it had to be a fabrication of her mind. If she were really floating in water, she’d be dead by now.
She pinched her inner thigh hard enough to bring tears to her eyes. Her leg stung angrily, but she still hung there, bobbing and rocking gently with the motion of a ship.
She turned and banged her fist against the wall, fighting panic as the force of her swing simply pushed the rest of her body around in the water. She braced herself against the far side and beat her fists against the wall, shouting at the top of her lungs. She could hear the muffled noise of her cries and the metallic thump as her fists landed, but no one answered.
Panic overwhelmed her. She thrashed wildly, shoving against the sides of this prison, trying to break herself free of the confines of the cage or the dream, but she remained locked in both. She screamed until her voice gave out. She beat her fists against the walls until they were broken and bloody, and then she began kicking. Her heart raged in her chest.
I am going to die here.
Th
e thought wrapped her in a suffocating embrace, and she ceased struggling, allowing her body to sink to the bottom of the thing that held her. She had no idea how she’d gotten here, but she was certain this was where she would die. She wondered how long it would be before someone found her body.
Don’t panic, she thought, and she began to hum to herself a tune from a song she’d sung as a young child while playing with her friends. She didn’t remember the words, only the tune itself. She hummed them over and over again as the darkness pressed in.
CHAPTER NINE
It was still dark when Evelyn opened her eyes. She sighed, irritated that she’d awoken so early when she didn’t have to. Today was the first day of summer, and that meant there was no school, no work, and nothing she had to do. She could have slept all day, but instead she was apparently up before the sun. With a moan she rolled over, intending to bury her face in her pillow and force herself back asleep. But she’d barely moved at all when something hard and metallic stopped her, a loud clanging noise echoing in the darkness.
She tried to raise her hands to her neck, trying to understand where she was and what was holding her so tightly, but her hands wouldn’t move. They were held down by something hard and immobile. Heart pounding, she yanked an arm upward as hard as she could, but again, no movement. Instead the sharp edge of a cuff dug into the soft flesh of her wrist. In a terrified flurry, she yanked the other hand upward and kicked out with both feet. He muscles strained, but both ankles and both wrists were cuffed tight.
She lay still for several moments, and then slowly lifted her head. Immediate pressure against he neck, as wide as a belt, held her head in place. She could not move.
If you panic, you’ll die. Her father’s words. He had taught her that the first time he’d allowed her to ship out with him. The Lisse was a slow moving river, sluggish and smooth all the way to Middelhaern and the coast. But it could rage during a storm, and many boatsmyn had met their doom in her depths. Her father wouldn’t allow her to ship with him until she’d learned to swim and to keep her head if something went wrong.
If you panic, you’ll die. She let her father’s words wash over her as she breathed deeply, counting to five as she inhaled, tracing the shape of a star in her mind, counting as she passed each point of the star. She exhaled, forcing her breath to match her voice as she slowly counted the five points of the star. She’d find a way if she kept her wits about her. She followed this pattern until her breath calmed.
“He…hello?”
The sound was muffled, as if the space she inhabited were small and tight. She stared upward, eyes wide, trying to discern something about where she was, but the darkness was absolute. She could feel her own breath against her face, and with a sinking feeling in her belly, she knew she was inside something and that the top of whatever held her was only inches from her face.
Her body flooded with heat as fear rushed through her. She was restrained, confined in a tight box, and she had no idea where she was and no idea who’d put her here. She must have been drugged last night, though she didn’t have any idea where it could have happened or who could have done it. She felt her tenuous grip on composure slip. She could have handled being restrained or being held in a tight box, but the reality of both at once overwhelmed her. She kicked wildly, trying to dislodge whatever was above her or break the bindings that held her, but her feet were held as surely as her hands were. Hard metal dug into her wrists, her ankles, her neck, but no matter how hard she tried, the bindings did not yield. She was trapped.
She took a deep shuddering breath. Time shrank. Or perhaps it expanded. She tried to hold the fear in, tried to focus on her father’s voice, but it was all too much. She screamed and kept screaming until her voice broke and stuttered to a halt. She fell silent, her breath hitching in her chest as she battled for control of herself. She’d form a star in her mind only to have it shatter apart before she could even begin to count the points. Her breath—lurching and heaving—refused to be tamed.
She had no idea how much time passed, but she eventually was able to rein in her unruly body. Inhale for a count of five, exhale to a count of five, breathe in as she drew a five-pointed star in her mind, breathe out as she traced the shape backwards.
She was pillowed in silence; the only sounds were her slow, deliberate breaths and the occasional ping of water against stone. The air was still and damp, and she thought she must be underground for it to be so quiet and still.
Think, think! she ordered herself. What happened?
She thought through the night before. Her father had made a roast for dinner and cherry pie for dessert. Those were her two favorite things, and he’d made them to celebrate the first day of summer. Afterward, she’d met Rudy and Shera out by Rudy’s flower shop. They’d been out late, talking and singing and gossiping until long after the sun had gone down. She’d fallen asleep in her bed, her parents tucked into their own bed downstairs. There had been nothing strange about the night, nothing different. There hadn’t been any rumors of trouble in town, and she would have known if there had been. Meuse was a tight knit place, and as chancellor, her mother would have been the first to know if anything strange had happened.
Well, something happened!
Someone must have snuck into town after dark and specifically gone after her family. Not only was her mother chancellor, but her father owned the largest shipping fleet in town. Did that make them more or less of a target?
“Mother?” she said quietly, her voice muffled in the closeness around her. “Camden?” she tried her father’s name, more loudly this time. She had to be at home still. They’d never have been able to move her without her waking up. Unless they drugged me.
“Father!” she yelled, not caring if someone other than her parents heard her.
“We have money. I can pay you if you let me go.” She spoke loudly, displaying a boldness she certainly didn’t feel. In the silence that followed, she felt the desperation welling up again. She was a good person. Her parents were good people. They didn’t deserve this.
“Please don’t hurt me,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. She despised the weakness in her voice. She tried to think of a tune to sing, but her mind refused to focus on anything but the certainty that she was in more trouble than she’d ever been before. She settled for number games instead, desperate to keep her mind in the here and now instead of losing it to desperation and fear. 32, 64, 96…
Somewhere in the distance, she heard the creak of a door opening, followed by a loud bang. The sound had been as metallic as the cuffs on her body. She sucked in a breath and held it. For a long moment she heard nothing more, and then, very faintly, she heard the sound of someone breathing beside her.
That quiet breathing terrified her more than anything else since she’d woken up. It was calm, regular, measured. Not the breathing of some mad man or crazed thief. It was the breathing of someone who knew what she or he was about.
She tensed as she felt a metallic clack beside her head, another near her hips, and a third down at her feet. A waft of stagnant air passed over her as the container that held her was opened. She sucked in the stale air as if it smelled of sunshine and wildflowers, so intense was her relief at having the container that held her swing open. She’d expected to see a face looming over her when the lid came up, but she was still cloaked in darkness. She lolled her head from side to side trying to see something, anything, of her surroundings. She felt rough fabric rub against the skin of her cheeks as she moved.
“Bag’s there.” The voice was soft, soft enough she could not determine the gender of the speaker.
She shook her head violently, trying to throw off the covering so she could see.
“Check the cuffs,” a much sharper voice said. It was startlingly loud in the silence and bounced around what must be a sizable room, if the echo were any indication. This one was definitely male.
Fingers fluttered at her neck, yanking on the cuff that wrapped it. They moved to
each of her wrists, yanking those cuffs in turn. When they reached her ankles, Evelyn kicked out at her captor in the hopes of gaining her freedom, but the bindings prevented her foot from reaching its target.
The soft voice hissed beside her. “Eh there, ye peerie thin’, watch what yer ’bout. Keck me once, an’ I’ll make ye suffer, I will.” The accent was thick and lilting, the tongue rolling over the r’s in a way Evelyn had never heard before.
“Let me out of here!” she shouted, struggling against the bonds that held her.
“I warned ye, peerie thin’.” He mumbled something unintelligible, and a blaze of fire exploded at her neck, wrists, and ankles.
Evelyn’s scream was cut off as the band tightened around her neck, choking her breath off completely. She continued to struggle, lashing out despite the metal holding her tight.
“She can hold her breath an impressive amount of time, can’t she?” The words were followed by a low chuckle in the male voice, which was now directly beside her. She bared her teeth and tried to lunge toward him, intent on ripping into him despite her head being wrapped in some sort of bag and bolted to whatever she lay on.
“Peerie it may be, but it’s crazy as Mad Arden’s daughter, ’tis. Ought te throw’t in the pit.”
“Absolutely not. Do you have any idea what this is?”
“I ken it’s ret powerful magic, but ye can find them sort other ways,” the quiet one whispered.
Their words penetrated the haze of rage that enveloped Evelyn, and she realized she was still holding her breath. Her body struggled, screaming for air, but she was not dizzy. She should be dizzy.
Pain radiated out from her neck, wrists, and ankles, her muscles cramping at the shock running into her flesh from the shackles. How could cuffs cause such pain? She went lax, and the cuff at her neck loosened immediately. She released her breath in an explosive exhale. The two people beside her laughed again.
