Reach for You by Pat Esden (18)

CHAPTER 18

—Journal of David Freemont, March 9th

 

 

 

I held my breath as the oil coated me. Shivers followed in its wake, icing my skin until I trembled. A second later, that sensation faded and only an almost undetectable resistance to my skin remained, like my body had been sealed in an ultrathin coat of varnish.

Our plan was simple. Find my mother first, most likely in the harem. She’d be able to take us to Chase. Then we’d all escape back to Moonhill.

I opened my eyes and slanted a quick look at Lotli’s shadowy form. Once we got back, I’d scream at the top of my lungs about the deal she’d forced me to make. But for now we were a team.

A vibrating sensation crept over my body and I closed my eyes again, waiting for tingles that would signal I was becoming as ethereal as Lotli. I was beyond ready for this. Still, after all the waiting, time seemed to be flying by now, the chance to back out a fading memory.

“I’ll go first.” Dad stepped between me and the space in front of the tapestry. His body shimmered, shedding the last of its solidness as he became ethereal. “Ready, girls?”

Dread and an odd sense of inevitability settled in the pit of my stomach. It felt as if I’d been moving toward this moment my entire life. I took a shaky breath. “I’m ready.”

“Ready,” Lotli echoed, only inches behind me.

Time hung in the air, the moment as frozen as a photograph. Selena had her hands cupped together, fear written in her eyes. Uncle David stood behind Olya, holding her tight. Houdini watched me from Zachary’s arms. The Professor had his phone raised above his head, recording the event. Kate lifted her chin and gave me an approving nod.

“We’ll wait right here until you return,” Grandfather said.

The first notes Lotli played whistled gently, like a shepherdess soothing her flock, rising and falling. My throat dried as I waited. The soft notes became insistent, fiercer, harder, shriller. The air trembled with the eerie sound. Pressure built in my ears and I retreated farther into my hood. There was no ward on this side to block us, just whatever spells Malphic had in place on the other side.

Cold exploded outward, rushing toward us. The flute’s music whistled higher. Houdini yowled, but his cries faded under the ringing pressure singing in my ears. Ahead, between us and the tapestry, the air unzipped, like a tent flap ripping open with sparks of electricity crackling all around it. Beyond the opening, gray mist swirled and eerie orange light whickered.

Dad stepped forward. The flute music lowered a staccato march, suddenly shrieking upward again, a piercing wail. The sound vibrated inside me, even the marrow in my bones shook.

This was it. I swallowed hard, and followed Dad.

Electricity sizzled all around me. The air became stifling, oppressive and hot. It pressed against us, an unyielding tide fighting to shove us back. Dad lowered his head like a bull and pressed on. Pressure squealed in my head, almost too much to bear. But I stuck close to Dad. One step. Another step. Lotli’s music reverberated behind me—

My ears popped. The resistance vanished and my muscles once again took on solid weight as I lurched into a small chamber, its curved walls brightened by flickering torchlight.

Dad’s hand steered me to one side, preventing me from stumbling over a low stand with an unlit hookah resting on top of it. Next to it sat a pile of embroidered floor cushions. Adrenaline thumped into my blood. This was great. There wouldn’t be a sitting area like this arranged directly in front of a weak point if it was actively being used.

I swiveled, guiding Lotli into the room like Dad had done for me—

A masculine snarl reverberated behind us.

I swung around. A man-shaped black shadow leapt out from nowhere, the dark blade of his scimitar glinting. A shadow-genie!

My head whirled, my heartbeat crashing in my ears.

Dad sprung forward. The scimitar slashed toward him. Dad ducked and came up, his fisted hand slamming into the shadow-genie’s stomach. The lung-searing stench of bleach flooded the room. The shadow howled and stumbled backward. Dad rammed his fist into its rib cage. That’s when I noticed a short white rod in Dad’s hand. He yanked the rod upward and the shadow writhed, crumpling to the floor, shrieking and wheezing as oily black liquid boiled from the frothing wound.

Fear jolted through me. Someone had to have heard the shadow’s screams. We had to get out of here. I swung around, studying the entire room. No windows. No doors. Silk draped the ceiling. Carpets covered the curved walls. Carpets. But where did they lead?

“The shadow!” Lotli screeched.

It was on all fours, staggering to his feet. His jaw hung open. Black goo oozed from a gaping hole in its chest. Dad hauled his arm back, slamming the rod into the shadow’s eye. But whatever he was using for a weapon disintegrated on impact, crumbling into melting sludge.

The shadow stumbled toward Dad, teeth bared. I pulled a bag of salt from my pocket, my fingers fumbling with the zip-lock as I yanked it open. Grabbing a handful of salt, I threw it at the shadow’s face. Crystals rained down, hissing like acid against the shadow’s body. Shrieking wildly, it spun like a cyclone. Then it splattered down on top of a floor cushion in an oily black mass, dead-still, for now.

“Hurry,” Dad commanded. “Lotli, open the veil. Annie, help me shove him through.”

Flute music filled the room, an erratic whistle. The barely closed veil crackled open. I grabbed one side of the floor cushion. Dad took the other. My neck muscles pinched from the effort as we heaved it back, then shoved it forward, shooting the cushion and shadow through the slit in the veil, like mafia henchmen heaving a body in the East River.

Dad chuckled. “Bet that will surprise your aunt Kate.”

I stared at him incredulously. How could he laugh? “Yeah, and in about two seconds this place will be full of other guards.”

He raised a finger and cocked his head as if listening. “Do you hear anything? Anything at all—such as sounds from outside of here?”

Lotli blinked. “We hear nothing.”

I smiled. “It’s soundproof, like Malphic’s harem. Noise barely travels inside and can’t escape or get into here.” My fears returned. “That doesn’t mean other guards won’t show up. That one probably has a partner.”

Lotli stepped toward the center of the room. “This is not a safe place. Malphic works magic here.” She scuffed a sheepskin rug aside with her foot, uncovering symbols chiseled into the stones and stained with dark-red splatter.

I shuddered. Blood? Brain matter? I really didn’t want to think what the stains were from, but I couldn’t help it. They weren’t the only creepy things either. On a stone table, a jar filled with yellow liquid and bird embryos sat next to a bowl of half-burnt charcoal, and an uncoiled scroll. A brass face mask with thumbscrews on the sides and spikes around the eye sockets waited on a side table. Shelves and crannies overflowed with books bound in leather, some clasped with jewels, others with glowing seals. A carpet hanging on the wall behind the stone table depicted a warrior standing on a clifftop. Blood covered his torso. His lower half was a dark tornado of shadows and symbols. In one hand he held a raised scimitar, lightning rose from his other. At his waist, a knife with a moonstone glistened. A knife whose handle held the branding iron, the one that had marked Chase’s collarbone. A knife like the one Chase had taken from Malphic five years ago when he escaped the realm with David and Kate’s help. No question about it, this room was Malphic’s inner sanctum.

Dad strode to the wall, resting his hand on the nearest carpet. “Like it or not, there’s only one way out of here. But who the hell knows which one? What do you think, Lotli?”

She tucked her hands into the folds of her robe. “We cannot say. This magic is not within our understanding.”

“Don’t worry. I’ve got this one,” I said confidently. I stripped off my mitt and tucked it into my strap-like belt, then took off the egg necklace. The only way to keep a leg up on Lotli was to not let any hint of insecurity leak through.

“Annie—?” Dad started.

I cut him off, hoping he’d manage to cover his confusion and give me a chance. “Don’t worry. The magic in here won’t affect me.”

Holding the end of the chain, I let the egg dangle just above the drawing on my palm, boxes and lines representing the layout of the fortress. I drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. Please, please, let this work.

Nothing happened, except for desperation and fear blooming inside me. Any second, Lotli would start laughing for sure.

I set my jaw and focused again, blocking out all other thoughts. A tingling sensation sparked in my chest, branched outward, sweeping toward my arm, and down to where my fingers and thumb held the chain.

“Show me where we are,” I said.

The egg swung slowly until it hung directly above the far side of the horseshoe-shaped arena. It began to circle right where my drawing ended. Shit. We were in the part of the fortress I hadn’t seen last time.

Lotli bent close, watching the circling egg. “Ask it how we can get out of here.”

“Show me a doorway,” I said. But the ache in my chest told me my heart longed to ask a different question. Where is Chase? Help me find him?

“You probably should be more specific,” Dad whispered.

I nodded and took another breath. “Where is a doorway that leads to what lies just beyond these walls?”

The tightness in my chest intensified. I lowered my palm and held the pendulum out in front of me, letting it swing as I walked forward: left, right, left, right, forward, back . . . changing direction when I went the wrong way, like the ticks of a metal detector homing in on a buried coin.

The egg stopped swinging and began to circle in front of a slender carpet decorated with a knife embraced by a long-stemmed white rose with clawlike thorns. I’d seen the design before over the door to the harem: the insignia of Malphic and Sovereign Mistress Vephra.

“This one,” I said.

“Good choice.” Dad nodded to a sheathed sword, leather gloves, and a long scarf hanging on a rack beside the carpet. Genies wore scarves like that because the realm’s salty air weakened them slightly. Most of the time, they just kept them looped around their necks. But when they wanted extra strength, they’d use the scarf to shield their mouth and nose from the air. It was the sort of personal item Malphic might want quick access to.

“If this is Malphic’s inner sanctum, I’m willing to bet this carpet might not change as often as the public ones,” I said.

“We think so as well.” Lotli started toward the carpet.

But before she beat me to it, I leaned forward. The carpet’s threads diffused into colored mist, and static shocks snapped against my skin as my face pressed through it. Beyond the carpet a narrow enclosed stairwell led steeply downward toward an opening illuminated by an eerie lime-green and orange glow, most likely nighttime darkness and firelight mixed with the realm’s ever-present auroras. The air echoed with the distant clank of metal against metal and lots of masculine grunts and groans. Chase. Maybe the pendulum had answered both of my questions.

I glanced over my shoulder at Lotli and Dad. “It’s a stairwell. There are men sparring, I think. But I can’t see anyone.”

“Chase,” Lotli cooed. Her hood might have shielded her face, but I knew there was a nasty glint in her eyes.

I bit my tongue, refusing to be baited into her trap. Instead I fixed my gaze on Dad and asked a question that was eating at me. “What did you stab the shadow with?”

He gave me a wink. “Remember the story about your great uncle Harmon and the Canary Islands sirens?”

“A salt shank?” I said, gaping at him. Harmon had escaped from the sirens by using a knife made out of salt. Kind of like how modern prisoners make shanks in jail by melting Jolly Ranchers. But when had Dad had time to make one? And, if he had, then why hadn’t he made them for all of us?

He tucked his hands into his pockets, his body going a bit too still. “Unfortunately I only had time to whip up one.”

I felt my face pale. He was lying for the second time today. My gut told me so. The way he was controlling his body language said it as well. But what was he hiding? It was possible that he’d swiped the shank from Moonhill’s treasury, instead of making it as he’d claimed. But I couldn’t imagine why he’d bother to lie about that. However, it made perfect sense for him to not want me to know he had another shank stashed if he intended to use it for a very dangerous and specific purpose. Something he didn’t want me involved in. Revenge.