This time I’d gotten only one try. I prayed I wasn’t somewhere halfway around the world from home.
Next to me, Draven rolled over and looked up at the sky. “Fresh air,” he said. “I did miss that.”
He got up and frowned at the mud on his tattered black uniform. Once, I’d been terrified of the figure Draven cut. He had worn his Proctor’s uniform like it was his skin, and his boots had gleamed as bright as the wings of the clockwork ravens that swept in his wake.
Now his uniform was a mess, faded and shredded, and he wasn’t wearing shoes. He’d lost weight, and his pants sagged in the seat.
“I brought you back here. Now tell me how to find Dean,” I said. I couldn’t stand just yet—I felt, in using the Gates, as though I’d left part of myself back there in that great nothingness. “Tell me how to get to the Deadlands.”
“Don’t waste any time, do you?” Draven smirked. I hated how he could stand there, dirty and bedraggled and alone, and still act like he’d gotten the best of me.
“Just tell me,” I said. “And then we can walk in opposite directions and never have to see each other again.”
Draven laughed, the dry bark of a crow. “You really think it will be that easy? You think I’ll just tell you what you want to know?”
“Listen,” I said. “I could have dumped you in the middle of the ocean or the cold of space, but I didn’t. In spite of what you are, I brought you back here.” I folded my arms and forced myself to appear brave. “So it seems like you owe me, Draven. There’s nobody else here besides us. What do you have to lose?”
His face twitched, and I could see he’d been planning to run. I hoped I wouldn’t have to chase him to get what he knew.
“You have any idea what they did to me in that place?” he ground out. “What they did because of you?”
I watched him while he watched me. His arms and what I could see of his torso through his ripped uniform were scarred and pale, the result of months of torment, spent in the dark. His hair hung greasy and lank, and his handsome face was covered with bruises and scabs.
My mother had once told me that Octavia allowed nothing in the court more beautiful than her. Disfiguring Draven had probably been some kind of game.
“About what you would do to me if you managed to throw me in one of your prisons,” I said. “And I know you would, if the situation were reversed.”
“That’s fair,” Draven agreed, but he still tensed to spring at me. “But I’m afraid my time among the Kindly Folk has left me just a bit less forgiving than I used to be.”
“Look, Draven.” I sighed. “I don’t care about you. I just want to get Dean back. I’m not going to apologize for turning you over to Tremaine, because you would have done the same to me.”
Draven took a step toward me, and I darted back. “Don’t,” I said, my voice grinding like mismatched gears. Even skinny and broken, Draven still had the ability to scare me.
“I could leave you here, you know,” he said. His hand darted out and grabbed my wrist. “Knock you on the head and leave you for the crows.”
Rather than pull away, as every instinct in my body was screaming at me to do, I yanked Draven closer, matching the force of his grip. “And I could send you somewhere so awful, mud and crows would seem like paradise.”
After a moment Draven started laughing, a genuine laugh, tinged with hysteria. “Aoife, you and I are so much more alike than you realize.”
“The Deadlands,” I snarled, not rising to the bait. “Tell me.”
“It’s very simple,” he managed between peals of laughter. “I can’t believe you haven’t figured it out.”
“Figure what out!” I gave him a shake, trying to quell his laughter, but it didn’t work.
“To go to the Deadlands, you have to die,” Draven said. “Stone and sun, it’s so simple.”
I let go of him, shoving him back with disgust, and he sprawled in the mud, laughing so hard he disturbed a flight of birds from the nearby field. “Run on, Aoife!” he shouted. “Run away to die!”
I should have guessed he didn’t really know anything, that he’d be useless and only out for himself, but I just turned my back and walked away to the east, rather than act out my rage by sending him through another Gate.
It was more than Draven ever would have done for me.
* * *
There was a road next to the stone wall bordering the field we’d landed in, and I jumped the wall and followed it.
After a time, I came to a signpost and nearly wept in relief. The post announced NEW CANAAN, 5 MI. I was in Connecticut. I could sneak aboard a train or a steam jitney, lay low, and in less than twelve hours, I’d be home.
I managed to get on a jitney by pretending I was with a large family. The ride was uneventful. I’d expected the jitney to be crawling with Proctors, but not only were there no black-uniformed officers, even the notice from the Bureau of Proctors had been torn down, replaced with an ad for toothpaste.
I fell asleep soon after boarding, and didn’t wake until it was time to sneak off with the family at Springfield.
The village of Arkham lies tucked up against the mountains like a sleeping cat curled in a hidden place, bordered on all sides by granite hills and primeval forests. I was able to hitch a ride within a few miles, and now I walked.
I confess that I didn’t walk quickly. I didn’t know what I was going to find when I got to my father’s house. I hoped it would be empty, that my father and his fiancée, Valentina, would still be at her home on Cape Cod. Then I could figure out what I was going to do, and avail myself of Graystone’s library to find out more about the Deadlands.
I felt guilty for not wanting to see my father, but I couldn’t imagine facing him after what he was sure to see as me running off to live in Thorn with Nerissa. My father wasn’t exactly the warm and fuzzy type who offered sage advice and comforting pats on the hand. He was more of a drill sergeant.
Still, he was my father. I loved him, and I didn’t want him to be angry with me. I didn’t want him to look at me differently because I’d gone with my Fae blood rather than the human Grayson blood, even if I had had a choice.
Although, it was the human blood that gave me my Weird. My human blood that made me into something considered an abomination by those good people who populated the Iron Land. I couldn’t blame them entirely. The Proctors had lied to them for a long time, and people were afraid of what they didn’t understand. I got that. I just wished I didn’t have to live with the constant, twitchy fear that somebody would see under my skin, see the two kinds of blood in my veins. See that I wasn’t like them, would never be like them.
Graystone, the Grayson family estate, sat on the top of the mountain overlooking Arkham. I could have cut through the fields around the village and avoided people, but I decided instead to walk up the broad cobble road. I didn’t want to sneak into my own home like I was a thief.
Arkham Village was protected by gates, high iron gates like two skeletal hands, folded in prayer. They stood askew, and I watched a few scraps of newspaper flutter across the cobbles as I passed through.
Where was everyone?
A piece of yellow parchment blew up against my foot, and I picked it up, smoothing it out and reading the bold black type.
EVACUATION ZONE
CITIZENS OF ARKHAM ARE HEREBY ORDERED TO VACATE
AND MOVE TO THE NEAREST DESIGNATED SAFE ZONE.
DO NOT ATTEMPT TO STAY IN YOUR HOMES!
ARKHAM VALLEY HAS BEEN DECLARED UNSAFE.
I read the words twice, not understanding what had happened. Arkham was deserted—a few windows had been broken by vandals, but mostly it was silent. A white cat hopped up on a windowsill a few feet from me and meowed.
I scooped the cat up, and he immediately started purring and nestled against my chest. “Where is everyone?” I asked him.
“Gone.”
I shrieked and whirled toward the voice, clutching the cat to me. He hissed and squirmed. My heart
thudded so violently it felt like a kick in the ribs.
An old woman stood a short distance from me, leaning heavily on a cane. Her pink skirt and shapeless gray sweater were streaked with dirt and some rust-colored substance that I sincerely hoped was gutter water and not blood.
“You scared me,” I said.
“All gone,” she cackled. “Guv’mint came and rounded them up.”
I looked back at the evacuation notice, and saw that the Bureau of Proctors symbol was missing. The woman made me jump again when she snatched the paper from my hand.
“Ain’t no Proctors round here no more,” she wheezed, stamping the paper under her bare foot. It was black, scabbed and caked with grime. Up close, she smelled sour as a room long shut, and my stomach flipped. She bothered me in a way I couldn’t quite define. The cat hissed again and his claws dug into my flesh.
“Who’s there?” I said, taking a step back. I scanned for escape routes from the corner of my eye, but the street was narrow and only the door of a house across the street, hanging off its hinges and creaking back and forth in the slight breeze, offered a possible exit.
“Me,” the old woman croaked. She pointed upward conspiratorially and leaned in. “Them.”
Overhead, I saw rows and rows of crows arrayed on rooflines. They were silent, not even ruffling a feather, and all stared toward the east, as if waiting for something.
That, a thousand times more than the old woman, caused a chill to race through me.
“They’re comin’,” the old woman hissed. “From the sky and from the sea. From the places you can only dream about, little girl. They’re comin’, the old things, the dark things, and the powers that be don’t like folk round here sayin’ so. Rounded ’em up, took ’em to a hospital.” She turned her head and spit, and I edged backward another step, toward the village gates. I’d seen enough mad people to know the dangerous ones, and this woman was about two clock ticks away from scratching my eyes out.
“Hospital!” she hissed. “Ain’t no hospital! They want to stop us dreamin’!”
I paused in my microscopic retreat. “What?” It couldn’t be—that had been just a dream, just something I’d hallucinated while attempting to get control of my Weird before I realized such a thing was impossible.
“We all dreamed,” the woman mumbled. “All the folk in Arkham, the same thing, night after night. The arrival, the things on the shore, crawling through our houses and through our heads.” She shuddered, dirty hair the color of muddy snow flying away from her face. “And then the men came and took us off. Said it was for our safety. Never is. Never, never is.”
“Do you know anything about the house on the hill?” I whispered. My father’s home could have easily been looted, or torn through by Proctors, and if they found some of the things I knew were there, my father was in certain danger, not to mention Valentina, Conrad and my friends.
The woman’s eyes fairly bugged out of her skull. The cat snarled at her, and I felt my heartbeat accelerate. “Oh, I see you now,” she hissed at me, baring her teeth. “Shoulda known you was one of them, those that live behind those walls.”
She made a move for me, and I didn’t hesitate any longer. I ran, and her ragged nails only tangled themselves in my hair, ripping strands free and leaving a stinging patch on my scalp.
“Demon!” the woman howled. “Go back to hell, where ya came from!”
My breath rattled, and I broke for the gates, stumbling through a welter of glass and furniture in the street, smashed dishes and toys and all the other remnants of someone’s life.
I didn’t stop. That was the most important thing when you were running; I’d learned that long ago, as a child other children loved to torment. Run until your lungs burn and your legs give out. Don’t stop, because if you can just run long enough, your tormentors will give up, get tired and find someone else to throw rocks and chant names at.
The gates let me out of the village proper and I cut through the gardens of a few outlying cottages until I found the back path, the steep rocky trail up the hill to Graystone.
Before, I’d had some idea of what I’d find when I got there—empty house, cold bed, possibly a stray raccoon or two that’d made themselves at home.
Now, I had no idea. If the government, Proctors or not, had come to Arkham and evacuated it, my home could have been burned to the ground. And if that old woman wasn’t crazy, and people in Arkham were having the same dreams I’d been having before I’d had to go back to the Thorn Land, then everyone in this valley—in the Iron Land—was in much worse trouble than I could imagine.
I was chilled, by both the wind and my thoughts. Only the small purring form of the cat, tucked in my sweater, kept me warm as I climbed up and up, into the mist that obscured the valley below.
3
Homecoming
THE VIEW OF Graystone would never stop startling me. It was a vast place—carved from rough-hewn granite, massive blocks twice my height stacked atop one another to form the bulk of the main house, wings flying off the sides and back like those of a desiccated bird lying on the ground. Twin turrets sprouted from the ridgeline, the blank blue glass reflecting the empty stare of the clouds and mist.
The gate was ajar. That was bad. I strapped my bag across my chest—wouldn’t do to lose it after I’d managed to bring it all the way from Thorn—and soothed the cat into silence. I crept forward one step after another. I wasn’t the type to rush in, like Dean or Conrad. I took my time. I’d wanted to be an engineer, and being meticulous was part of my makeup.
It was also what had kept me alive thus far.
The one time I’d been impulsive, had flown by my instincts, didn’t bear talking about. The fallout from that choice was all around me, in the absolute silence of the woods around Graystone, the ever-present fog that hadn’t burned away even though it was close to midday, the strange dreams of the populace.
I couldn’t clearly remember what had happened in that place on top of the world, just flashes and fragments, but I knew I’d unleashed something. I’d opened a door so long shut that it had been forgotten by everyone except me and a few beings so ancient they didn’t even have names.
The door of Graystone bore a knocker the size of my head. It was the face of a wolf, grinning at me with bronze teeth and a black iron tongue.
I raised it and let it fall once, twice, three times.
The crows were even more prevalent here. They clustered in the oak trees leading up to the gates, on the rim of the turrets and on windowsills, while hundreds more swooped and dove overhead, cawing so loudly their cries echoed off the stone walls, rolling back on my ears like a wave.
Just as I was about to go around to the back gardens and see if I could get in through the kitchen or a window, the door opened. I heard the creak of clockwork, felt it inside my skull, the low, secret place where the Weird lived. It reacted with iron and machines as well as the Gates between worlds, sensing its likeness forged from metal rather than human flesh.
“Hello?” I called, sticking my head inside. The air was dank and musty, much as it had been the first time I’d come here, looking for my father.
That time, he’d disappeared. I’d been alone, beset by the Fae.
I prayed that this time it’d be different, that I could find what I needed and go get Dean without encountering any more trouble.
I took a few steps into the grand foyer, setting the cat down to scamper off into a dark corner. Graystone was a clockwork house, run by mechanical means, and that kept it safe from the incursion of predatory creatures.
I heard a clank from upstairs and tensed. I doubted any animal could have breached Graystone’s defenses, but that didn’t rule out a person.
“Hello?” I said again, loudly. My voice rattled the long, dagger-shaped crystals in the chandelier above. “Anyone there?” A little quieter. “Say something.” The last came as a whisper. No other sound echoed, and I forced myself to keep looking around. If someone was in the house, I wasn’t
going to be a sitting duck.
I started down the back hall toward the kitchen, where I’d always felt most comfortable. Graystone’s luxury was oppressive and smothering, everything incalculably old and valuable, more like the set of a lantern reel or a museum piece than a home.
The kitchen was made for living, was old and worn but homey, and unlike the rest of the drafty mansion, always warm.
As I crossed the threshold, I felt a breath on my neck, but I wasn’t fast enough. I felt a metal barrel jammed against my skin and a rough hand clamped against my mouth.
“What’s your business here?” a voice hissed in my ear.
I struggled, panic rising. The voice and the hand sounded and felt human, at least, but I had no idea whom they belonged to; plus, he or she was armed. Maybe a shock pistol, maybe something worse, but at this range there was no way I could twist the metal with my Weird to render it harmless.
I tried to shout Let go of me! but all that came out was labored breathing as I struggled with the hand across my mouth.
“Are you real?” the voice grated. “Am I seeing you or am I dreaming?”
I twisted violently, and managed to catch a glimpse of black hair, pale skin and a jacket the same gray as my old school uniform, too short at the wrists, exposing knobby bones.
“Conrad?” I managed.
He let go of me as abruptly as he’d sprung at me, but when he backed away the gun didn’t go down. It was old as the hills, metal dull, the energy bulb trapping aether at the barrel cloudy and nearly dead. Still, I wasn’t going to make any sudden moves. My brother had a temper and changeable moods, and we hadn’t parted on the best of terms. I would just as soon not have given him a good reason to shoot me.
“Are you real?” he repeated. His voice was raspy, and in the low light I saw deep circles beneath his eyes and a patchy growth of stubble on his high cheekbones.
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