The iron rungs of the ladder feel gritty and damp beneath my fingers, like I’m grasping at wet sand, and the cylindrical walls close around us – the rhythmic peristalsis of a giant throat. I feel grateful to the circle of light hanging above, delivering a blast of fresh air, a sense of escape. But Ash begins to slide the lid back into place, and I feel anxiety taking hold. The grind of metal on concrete, the shrinking crescent which eventually clunks to black; it’s like watching a terrifying lunar eclipse. And it reminds me briefly of the Dupes, stuck in that windowless room with only a circle of ceiling removed.
I hear several splashes as Nate jumps from the ladder. The torch Willow gave him clicks on, highlighting the texture of the bricks, the jagged rungs stained red and orange by time. I follow him into the water, which soaks into my boots, thick and cold.
I survey my surroundings. A tunnel, similar to the ones in canon, arched above and flat beneath my feet, stretching endlessly in both directions. Smaller tunnels branch from it – a row of black, staring eyes. I can stand in the passage with ease, but I still feel confined, thinking about the tons of earth pushing down on us, held back only by a network of ancient, damp-mottled bricks.
Nate sloshes up to the wall and runs his finger over a yellow marking. It looks like an angle, two lines connected at a point. ‘The lovebirds never figured these out, remember? They ended up hideously lost.’
I nod. The markings were made by the rebels years ago, signalling the various exit ladders. But they were coded, a precautionary measure in case the Gems ever made their way down here. And Rose had never been told how to interpret them. Eventually, she found a rebel bolthole – an old garage with a Humvee stashed inside – but it took her several hours. They ended up crossing the rest of the city in it so they could reach the river. We need that Humvee, I think to myself.
I look at those yellow markings and can’t help but smile. It’s like the canon never gave up on us, like it knew we would catch up eventually. Just like Baba said – a story needs to unfold.
Ash pauses to examine the markings while Nate sloshes in my direction, seizing the opportunity to grill me. ‘So what was Willy doing in that hovercraft?’
‘He’s still into me,’ I whisper. ‘The canon’s back on track. If I get myself captured by the Gems, Howard Stoneback will see I make it on to the gallows, then all that needs to happen is Willow saying his lines and . . . voila!’
‘You’re serious?’
‘Nate, we can go home tomorrow.’
His face unfolds into a massive smile, the same one he used to wear when I pushed him full force on the swings. ‘Oh my God, Violet, this is immense. OK, OK, so how do we get you captured?’
‘Well, the canon seems to come good whatever we do.’
‘So we go to the river? Where Rose and Willow were finally caught?’
‘That’s what I’m thinking. We get the Humvee from the bolthole, we bust Katie out of headquarters, we head to the river, then you and the others cross to No-man’s-land. I’ll wait for the soldiers and surrender.’
‘My God, sis, check out your balls, they’re positively gleaming.’
I grin. ‘Katniss and Tris – they’re just a couple of Girl Guides.’
Nate looks thoughtful. ‘Is there time? Maybe Katie and I should find another hiding place?’
‘No-man’s-land is the safest place. If we hurry, you can easily cross the river before the soldiers arrive – we just need to navigate the sewers better than Rose, buy back some time. Can you remember where she went wrong?’
‘Maybe, these tunnels all look the same,’ he says.
Ash joins us. The movement of his legs causes a gentle wave to lap against my calves. ‘So what’s the plan?’ he asks.
‘We’re just discussing our next move,’ I say.
Ash looks at the bricks above, purposefully avoiding eye contact. ‘I thought that was what you and Willow were doing.’
‘Oh get over it, Squirrel,’ Nate snaps. ‘She wasn’t about to dick off the only person who could set us free.’
Ash exhales sharply. I can tell he isn’t convinced.
‘We find a vehicle,’ I say. ‘Get Katie, then we all cross the river to hide in No-man’s-land.’ Except for me, I think. I’ll be surrendering to those Gem soldiers.
‘There’s just one problem,’ Ash says. Even in the gloom, I can tell he’s blushing. ‘I can’t swim.’
None of the Imps can swim. I know this from canon. The only water available is filled with sewage and debris.
‘Don’t worry, there’s a boat,’ I say.
Nate swings the torch beam over the first marking. ‘If we could figure these markings out, life would be a lot easier.’
Ash glances at the markings again. ‘Two lines, one slightly shorter than the other. Are all the markings like this?’
‘Yeah,’ Nate says. ‘Just a load of different angles.’
‘They look like the hands of a clock,’ Ash says.
He’s right. A minute hand and an hour hand. I can’t believe I never noticed this before – a result of living in a digital age, I suppose. Count the minutes, not the hours. Where have I heard that recently?
‘The skipping rhyme,’ I say to Ash.
‘Count the minutes,’ he replies. ‘Do you think the rebels hid the answer in an old nursery rhyme? One that only the Imps would know?’
I nod. ‘The minute hand must point to the correct tunnel. Clever.’
Nate grins. ‘OK then, let’s buy back some time. Follow the human sat nav.’ He runs down the corridor, kicking up his boots so the water sprays around him, arcing from his feet and catching in the torchlight.
‘Keep up, slow coaches,’ he yells over his shoulder.
Ash and I follow. The air grows increasingly humid the further we get from the manhole, and running requires more and more effort, like pushing through treacle. Nate pauses at another pair of clock hands before jogging down a different corridor.
‘So what did the demigod want?’ Ash says, the damp and the moss of the walls absorbing his voice.
‘Look, Ash, what you saw in the hovercraft—’
He cuts over me. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘I had to keep up the act so he’d let us go. It wasn’t real.’
‘It looked pretty real to me.’
We round a bend, pass another clock face. The passage tightens.
‘Bear right,’ Nate shouts.
The ground below us suddenly curves. This tunnel is entirely tubular, and my feet take a moment to adjust. Ash catches me as I lurch towards the murky water. I collect myself, only to see a rat weaving past my boots – slippery and black, half-running, half-swimming. I grip Ash’s hand, the warmth branching up my forearm, and push on through the warren. Something about that skipping rhyme bugs me. Where did it come from? The clock markings were in canon, so perhaps the coded skipping rhyme was too. But could a rhyme exist in canon if Sally King didn’t write about it? Perhaps not. Rose never figured out the yellow markings, after all. And she would have known the rhyme had it existed; Ash made it sound like it was well known by all the Imps. Maybe the rhyme really is a prophecy about me.
Hope starts as a little flower.
Nate stares up a ladder. ‘You have reached your final destination.’ He gestures to a single yellow brush stroke on the wall. ‘It’s the mark from canon. It means the bolthole’s overhead.’ The beam of his torch explores the manhole cover resting above.
‘What’s he on about?’ Ash says. ‘And what’s this canon you keep mentioning?’
‘You wouldn’t believe us if we told you,’ I say.
‘More secrets?’ Ash twists his hand from mine and begins to climb the ladder.
I feel a stab of loneliness. Right now, that wall of secrets feels more like an impenetrable forest of thorns and brambles. A voice interrupts my thoughts. Deep and familiar, and so very out of reach. And the Princess slept for a hundred years. Though she never did have the face of the dead, her cheeks remained pretty and pink like the day she was born. It’s Dad’s voice again.
I look upwards. ‘Dad?’
A mixture of excitement and concern crosses Nate’s face. ‘You heard Dad again?’
I pause, listening intently to the drip of water, the scuffle of rats, the clang of Ash’s boots on the rungs. I shake my head. ‘No, no, I’m just hearing things. Ignore me.’ I don’t have space in my head for anything else right now.
I place a hand on the ladder, ready to haul myself upwards, but Nate shines the torch in my face and whispers, ‘Violet, I’ve been thinking . . . How did the Gems know about the raid at the Meat House?’
‘I don’t know, and Willow couldn’t tell me in the hovercraft.’
He wrinkles up his nose. ‘I can’t figure it out. In canon, the only Gem who knew about the raid was Willow, because he made it happen. But in the current, Willow wasn’t even captured by the rebels, so how could he have possibly known about the raid . . .’ He shoves his hands in his hair. ‘Agh, it’s messing with my head.’
Ash interrupts from above. ‘Are you guys coming or what?’
I look up at him, the soles of his boots so badly cracked I swear I can see the blisters on his feet. ‘Yeah, just a sec.’ I turn back to Nate. ‘Willow said his father told him about the raid.’
He frowns. ‘What really gets me is the Gems knew we would be at the Coliseum – that didn’t even happen in canon.’
‘I know. But the Meat House is only a few streets from the Coliseum. If the Gems knew about the raid, likelihood is they flew over the Coliseum and saw us. There must be a mole, maybe one of the Imp rebels. Someone we don’t know, or maybe even Saskia or Matthew.’
‘Maybe. Or someone else who knows the canon.’
We stare at each other. The realization scrapes out my insides. I reach for the split heart and end up pinching my bare throat instead.
‘Why would Alice do that?’ I ask. Everything seems to slow. The dripping water, the scuffling rats, even my own heart.
Because I already know the answer.
I can’t complete the canon if I’m dead.