Blood, Ink & Fire

by Ashley Mansour

  “Their drug?” Grandpa says baffled.

  “It’s a tidy arrangement, and I can’t have anyone messing that up for me.”

  “You’re cooperating with them!” Ros yells. “You lied to us!”

  “Calm down. I didn’t lie to all of you. They don’t care about you, you tree-hugging ragamuffin. Or you, Mr. Hartley, no offense. It’s the books they want. And the girl who can read them, apparently.”

  “What are you talking about?” Ros asks, her eyes reddening.

  “Fell doesn’t care about you. Just her. Just Noelle Hartley. It doesn’t matter to them if the rest of you live or die. So I suggest you keep your mouths shut if you want to live.”

  His words sink into me, even as everything starts to blur, and my mind slows into a foray of moving shadows. I’m the one they want. What was it Ledger called me? A true reader? My mind starts to spin as the voices around me continue to speak.

  “I was going to try to negotiate for you, actually,” Obe says to me with a little sigh. “On account of you making such a nice nymph and all. But then let’s just say Fell made their position crystal clear. They upped their offer, and I got to thinking: I like my life here in Fort Numb. Really, I do. And we like our protection, our freedom. And let’s face it, a little deal with Fell is better than ending up like your friends in Pedanta.”

  “At least they fought,” I yell. “At least they didn’t give in like cowards.”

  “I’d rather be a living coward than a dead hero,” Obe sneers. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter. The deal is done. There’s nothing you can do now. So you may as well just give up. Give in, Noelle Hartley.”

  Ledger lunges at Obe, throwing him against the wall. He slams him into the hard surface. “You think I’m going to let you hurt her? Let you give her over to Fell?”

  “You can’t stop it. It’s already happening,” Obe says, shaking.

  Ledger slams his head back and grabs his throat. “Reverse it!”

  “I can’t!” Obe squeals. “Fell’s already here. You can’t stop ’em, man! And if I don’t deliver, they’ll kill me. Kill all of us!”

  “Listen to me you piece of filth! You can undo this!” Ledger yells, pushing him. “Take us to Goodfellow and call off the deal!”

  “You don’t get it,” Obe says, his voice hoarse. “You don’t call off a deal with Fell. Not for something like this.”

  “Something like what? What are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about him,” Obe says. “Cadge. He wants her. And what Cadge wants, he gets, whether it’s me that gives her to him or not . . .”

  “Cadge? Who is Cadge?” Ledger says, jostling him by the collar.

  “Who is Cadge? Are you serious?”

  Ledger rams him into the wall. “Just. Tell. Me.”

  “Hyden Cadge. You know, grandson of Astral Cadge, the infamous founder of Fell. He’s it now. The big one. The head honcho. El presidente . . .”

  My stomach drops when I hear it. I feel horror sink into my middle. This is what we’re up against? The core of Fell that we never see? The leader?

  “No,” my grandfather says, his head in his hands, voice breaking. “What have we done?”

  “Calm down, Mr. Hartley. Please, you’ve got a long night ahead of you underground,” Titania says.

  Ledger slams Obe into the wall. I hear something crack as he tightens his grip around his neck, strangling him. “Undo this, or I will end you myself!”

  “Nymphs! Help! Security!” Obe shouts.

  In moments, a band of male nymphs emerge with Fell chemi-tasers. They tear Ledger off Obe and force us all into a circle.

  “That’s better,” Obe says, rubbing his neck. He marches up to Ledger, whose eyes expand as something sharp pierces his skin. His limbs slacken like his entire body is going numb. Obe smiles, pulling a long silver needle from Ledger’s flesh.

  “Easy tiger,” he whispers. “You know I was saving this for the girl, but now I’ll just have to find another way to subdue your little nymph.”

  “What have you done to him?” I wail.

  Titania turns to me and puts out a feathered hand. “You must realize you never stood a chance against them. Fell would have caught up with you sooner or later. Might as well just stop fighting it, honey. Just let it end peacefully.”

  “There’s no such thing as peace,” I shout. “Not without sacrifice.”

  “Indeed, which is why we’re going to sacrifice you,” Obe laughs. “One girl is a small price to pay for the latest Fellmaceutical. Wouldn’t you agree?”

  I can barely form the words, but they’re in my head, and I need to say them. I need to let Grandpa, Ros, and Ledger hear me, to know I’m not giving up. I’m not done fighting. “No. We’ve come too far. And there’s no way I’m going to let you stop us.”

  Oberon tilts his head back and laughs. “The thing is, princess, we already have.” He leans forward, his stale breath reeking with the yellow scent of the drug. “And there isn’t a damn thing you can do about it.”

  NOELLE

  TWENTY-NINE

  Prisoners. It’s the word inside my head, repeating over and over with each nauseating thump. I’m sick to my stomach. The smell of Forgetsum accompanies my every breath. I sit up, feeling around in the dark. The floor is cool and damp to the touch. I can just make out the pounding of music, the familiar beat of Fort Numb’s Fairyland.

  My wrists and ankles are tied, but I crawl forward on my knees, grazing my skin along the gritty floor. I move as far as I can until I hit something cold and hard—a metal door. I follow the door to the wall, but soon I can’t go any farther.

  My head spins in the darkness as I dry heave, then press my head against the cool surface of the wall. Anything to stop the spinning.

  “Hello?” I call out. “Someone help me! Grandpa? Ros?”

  “Elle? Elle, is that you?”

  “Grandpa! I’m here! Where are we?”

  My grandfather wheezes. “I don’t know exactly. I think we’re in the basement.”

  “Noelle? You’re okay!” Ros’s voice sounds faint and childlike, but I’m so thankful to hear her, I nearly start crying.

  “Barely,” I manage. “I feel like I’ve been asleep for a hundred years.”

  “Like I said, that shit will mess with your head.”

  “It wasn’t Forgetsum they jabbed us with,” Grandpa mutters. “Just something to knock us out.”

  “But you’re all okay?” I ask.

  “Mmhmm,” Ros says. “If you call being tied up in this crazy hellhole okay.”

  Grandpa’s breathing quickens. “Noelle, we have a problem. Ledger . . .”

  My heart sinks. “Where is he?”

  “Behind you—back wall,” Ros says. “He’s not even tied up.”

  I feel the sickness return. Why wouldn’t they tie him, too? Unless they thought he wouldn’t need to be tied.

  I hear my grandfather move against the floor. His voice sounds closer now. “Whatever they’ve given him—he hasn’t woken yet.”

  “Can you get to him? Did you try?”

  “We’re too far away,” Ros says.

  It’s absolutely pitch-black as I feel my way along the floor, back toward the door and the wall I was slumped against just minutes before. I find the wall and pause, holding my breath to listen for him, but there’s nothing. Just the faint sound of the music, the dripping of water, my own heartbeat threatening to never slow down. The darkness is so thick, I’m afraid to reach out into it to find him. I know what will happen if I do, but I don’t have a choice. I have to see if Ledger is still alive.

  “Ledger?” I whisper into the blackness, but there’s no response. I swallow my fear and move closer to where Ros said he is lying. “Ledger? Please answer me!” I crawl farther until I hit a piece of fabric with my fingers. Ledger’s shirt. It’s him. I move toward him and try to find his face, being careful not to touch his bare skin. I lean over him and hear the softest sound of air moving through him.

/>   Relief washes over me. “He’s okay!” I say. “He’s breathing.”

  “It’s a miracle,” Ros whispers, awestruck. “I thought for sure he was dead.”

  “Thanks, Ros.”

  “Sorry. See if you can wake him.”

  “Ledger, wake up!” I try. “Ledger?”

  “He can’t and won’t hear you.” A voice from the shadows cuts through the quiet.

  “Who is that?” Grandpa yells. “Identify yourself!”

  “I’m a man without a name, without a face. I’m just a riddle. I’m just a sprite. I am that merry wanderer of the night.”

  “Why didn’t you speak before?” Ros says. “That’s so creepy just sitting down here, not talking. What were you doing?”

  “Listening.”

  “Can you tell us where we are at least?” Grandpa asks.

  “Yes, my good man. We are belowground and yet only slightly above the gates of hell.”

  “Great,” Ros mumbles.

  I hear the faint rattle of thick metal chains. “If you don’t mind, to whom am I speaking?”

  “I’m Noelle,” I blurt.

  “And the others?”

  “Ros and William, my grandfather.”

  “And who is the one who won’t awaken?”

  “That’s Ledger,” I say. “We came here together. Obe told us it would be safe here.” My head grows fuzzy. “Everything went wrong. Oberon, Titania, they . . . they . . .”

  “Yes, they meddled with your senses,” the voice says. “They captivated and enthralled you all at once, they regaled you with the majesty of their glorious Fairyland, and now here you are, love-juice poisoned and numb.”

  “They tried to poison us,” I say. “We refused them.”

  “Yes, they tried the same with me, but I know better. I’ve been counting days down here. Up, down! Up, down! That is how I—the Robin, the Puck, shall lead them into my wary confidence.”

  “Goodfellow?” my grandfather whispers. “Is that you?”

  “Aye, that is what they called me. Or what I called myself. But it was so long ago . . .”

  I can hardly believe what I’m hearing. “You’re Goodfellow? Goodfellow of the Rising?”

  “If I’m not mistaken. He is me. Or I am him. One and the same.”

  “Obe told us you were dead,” Ros says. “That lying son of a—”

  “Yes, he would have told you that. But I, Goodfellow, am very much alive. Or at least I was once . . .”

  Goodfellow! I would never have recognized him by his voice alone. I see his face in my mind, just a young man, trying desperately to save G. I search for his face in the darkness now, wondering what time has done to him.

  Grandpa mutters a curse under his breath. “What in hell are you doing down here?”

  “The king of shadows and his mistress put me away. I didn’t consent, of course, with their descent into darkness. Their will is that I wither and die down here, though it does go against mine, I can assure you.”

  “How long have they kept you here?” I ask.

  “By the notches in my wall, it has been ninety-seven days.”

  My heart is thudding in my chest, and my head is light. I cannot imagine being down here longer than a day, let alone more than three months. My throat tightens. We may be the lucky ones.

  “Goodfellow, your volume. The one from the Rising. What happened to it?”

  “I remember. But I cannot tell. That is the one riddle I cannot tell.”

  “You don’t understand. We have the other volumes. From the Winnow, Pedanta, and Ardenia. We need all of them together.”

  “The volumes, hmmm? Yes, you will need them all for it to make sense. That was the way Prospero designed it. So very clever. But I am amiss . . .” Goodfellow’s voice evaporates as he gets lost in remembrance of the past. “Is it actually coming true after all? The thing we doubted all those years ago? Can it be Prospero’s dream was right after all?”

  “You know about Prospero’s dream?”

  I hear the rattle of chains in the dark. “Of course I know about it! Every Riser knew. The question is, what is being done? Oh, what is being done? That is the question.”

  “You mean with the new Rising?”

  “Yes, the Rising. The secrets we left. The books. You see, they think I don’t remember. They think I’m mad, locked up down here as I am. But these chains cannot hold me. I am Puck, the merry wanderer of the night. I know what they’re up to, Oberon and his fairy queen.”

  “Goodfellow,” my grandfather says. “You have to help us. Tell us what you know.”

  Goodfellow mumbles, his speech unintelligible fragments. I realize he’s drifting in and out of consciousness. “They think I’m just like the others, numb inside, lost completely. But that’s just a game, a shot of Cupid’s fine bow. I know the compound. I know it very, very well.”

  “You mean the Forgetsum?”

  “Precisely. How to keep it from taking hold, how to resist the fug. Aye, there’s the rub! How to resist the amnesiac sea. Lord, what fools these mortals be.”

  “You know how to resist the Forgetsum?”

  “Precisely. Or at least I did some time ago. But the new stuff they have is much, much more potent, impossible to safeguard against.”

  “Safeguard? How can you safeguard against Forgetsum?”

  “By creating an immunity, my dear. Built up over many years. Who else should be the subject of human trials? Do you think I would risk the mind of anyone but myself?”

  “I thought the Forgetsum was Fell’s drug?” I say.

  Goodfellow’s chains rattle against the ground. “I created the Forgetsum compound! For Prospero and the Rising. We had to have a measure, you see, a way to ensure that we would not—could not—share our secrets. That they would be erased from our memories, if ever we should be captured. Fell stole it from me! Their engineers turned it into just another Fellmaceutical. You have seen the miasmal collective mind upstairs. This amnesiac high has destroyed my Sovereign and turned my people into helpless, tizzed-up sheep!”

  “Incredible. How could you let this happen?” Grandpa asks.

  Goodfellow throws his chains hard, making so much noise I’m sure someone upstairs has heard it. “I never meant for this to happen! I never intended for it to get this far and run rampant like a virus through all of Fort Numb, transforming our precious land into this blistering hellhole! God help us all for what Oberon has done!”

  Goodfellow sobs uncontrollably. “Forgetsum was meant for good. To protect the Rising and the work we had done. But after the war, people came to us looking for relief from the horror. It was so easy to help them, you see. So easy to make the painful memories dissipate. I never stopped to consider what might happen if . . .”

  “If Fell got hold of it?” Grandpa asks.

  “As I said,” Goodfellow snarls. “My compound was intended for good. To help those for whom hell had befallen. But no good deed goes unpunished, as they say. A certain weakness was born within our people. They had forgotten our suffering, you see. And those that never knew had no history left to cling to. It wasn’t long before Fell came sniffing around. They altered my formula, letting loose a drug across Fort Numb I could not control.”

  “It was Oberon,” Ros says. “He did this.”

  “Ever the opportunist . . . but it doesn’t matter now, because they have it. Hyden Cadge has it. And who knows what they intend to do with it?”

  “What do you mean?” Ros asks.

  “Fell has modified the compound. It is much more potent now than ever before.”

  “How long until the drug spreads to the other Sovereigns?” Grandpa asks.

  “I have no doubt it already has. You see those under the influence are nicely primed. No memory. No thought. No choice. Total compliance. It’s the perfect preparation.”

  “For immersion,” I say. “They want to immerse every Sovereign citizen?”

  “Of course. Reimmersion is their control mechanism,” Goodfellow says. �
��The autonomy of the Sovereigns was never anything more than an elaborate illusion.”

  “But the drug didn’t work for everyone, did it?” I say.

  “That is accurate,” Goodfellow says. “There were some who appeared to be genetically immune.”

  “Like Ganymede.”

  “But how do you know this?” Goodfellow whispers. “Because I saw it. I saw what Fell did to her.”

  “What did you see?” Ros asks.

  “Her story, Ros. I know what happened to your grandmother. She was hurt very badly by Fell. The other Risers gave her a big dose of Forgetsum to help her out of it. But it didn’t work. Not for her.”

  “It is true,” Goodfellow says. “I don’t understand how you can know this, but it is true.”

  “That’s why Grandma G burns the Forgetsum incense all the time. The effects are just temporary for her. She’s immune.”

  Ros’s eyes glaze over. “That’s why she . . .” her voice fades into silence.

  “Yes,” I confirm. “She remembers everything.”

  Ros wells up. “I can’t believe I never saw it. I just assumed she wanted to forget. I can’t believe I didn’t understand.”

  “She wouldn’t have wanted you to,” Grandpa says. “She once felt as you feel now. She wanted to join the Rising. But it only brought her great pain. She wanted to protect you from that. That was her way. Peace or nothing.”

  “I don’t want to speak of this anymore,” Goodfellow says. “Not that day. Not ever again. But tell me, how do you know of my pains?”

  My heartbeat rises into my ears. How do I know these things? What can I say to make him understand? I think of stories I’ve been told so far and the way I’ve read them, felt them . . . breathed them. Back in the RV I argued with Ledger over what I am, but he was right. They need me.

  Now, here’s my chance to embrace it, to no longer hold back. I feel the swell of resistance rising within me. “Because I am the one who is going to reunite the volumes of the Rising. I’m the one who is going to read them and discover their meaning.”

  Goodfellow’s chains tinkle quietly. “So you are she? You are the one Prospero dreamed of?”