Reach for You by Pat Esden (28)

CHAPTER 29

—General notes on alchemy
Hector Freemont

 

 

 

Dad , Jaquith, and Mother hurried over to us.

Mother pressed her palm against Chase’s face. “Are you okay?”

“Sure he is.” Jaquith cuffed Chase’s bicep. “Tough as iron, this one.”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Chase said. But his voice was choked with emotion and, even in the dim light and through the scruff of his beard and the dirt on his skin, it was impossible to not see how battered he was. He nodded at the goose egg on Jaquith’s forehead. “You don’t look so good yourself, brother.”

Jaquith touched the lump. “I owe this to that hexad, Lotli. I’ll tell you about it and a lot more, once we get out of this place.”

Chase frowned. “Hexad? What the hell is that?”

“You really don’t know?” Jaquith said. He waved off the question. “I guess I might not know either, if I were still living in the warrior barracks instead of hanging around the magi’s library. Trust me. Hexads are dangerous.”

Dad cleared his throat. “I hate to interrupt this reunion. But does anyone have a suggestion about how we’re going to get back into the fortress? We need to get to a weak point, and fast.” He cocked his head at the outer wall a few yards away from us. It was solid stone, sheer, and four or more stories high.

I glanced right and left as far as I could see. There was no entryway or carpet, nothing to indicate where we’d come out from the cell. But we had to be in the right area. Last night, it hadn’t taken us long to walk to the shelter.

I reached for my egg pendulum. “I can probably locate—”

Dad’s hand landed on my shoulder, silencing me.

Chase was walking stiffly toward the wall, one hand out in front of him like a TV version of a sleepwalker. Of course, it was his cell and designed to give him access to and from the desert.

He reached the wall and pressed his hand against the stone. His fingers, then his entire arm vanished through the wall. He withdrew his arm and smiled at us. “I’ll go first and make sure the cell’s empty.”

“Wait a minute,” Jaquith said. “I’m betting the rest of us aren’t going to be able to enter that easily, like the way we can’t get back up the berserker quarters’ stairwell without the hexad and her flute.” He pushed his hand against the wall right where Chase had and the stones remained impenetrable.

Dad tried with the same result and so did Mother.

I raked my hair back from my face. There had to be a way. I nibbled my bottom lip, thinking. Earlier, when Lotli had escaped from Chase’s cell, she’d used her flute to get through the carpet and into the tunnel. For all practical purposes, there had been no difference between what she did then and when she opened the veil between realms. So logic told me, if Malphic’s knife could open a weak point in the veil like her flute, then it might do other similar things. Such as getting us through this warded entryway.

I stepped up to the wall and drew the moonstone knife from my waistline.

Chase eyed me. “I was wondering why you were hiding that from me.”

Not wanting to tell him the real reason, I faked a smile. “You have to watch out for us Freemonts,” I said teasingly. I glanced toward Mother. “Plus, it seems I might just have inherited a few talents from the other side of my family.”

Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath. I had Malphic’s knife, but I needed the incantation that went with it. I couldn’t believe there wasn’t one. I just needed to remember the words.

I visualized Moonhill’s gallery and from there forced my mind back to the day of Mother’s kidnapping. Malphic must have said something when he opened the weak point.

* * *

* * *

Malphic. Mother. The knife. But no incantation.

Frustration balled my fingers into fists. I ran the memory through my head again to be sure. Not a single word, though logic screamed that Malphic must have whispered something. A short incantation. Something easy to remember.

Frantic, I swung toward Jaquith. “Ask Zea what words go with the knife. I know you’re not that connected yet. But if he senses your desperation, maybe his personality can come forward or something. He’s a magi. He must know how to open doorways and veils.”

Jaquith’s gaze met mine. He shook his head. “It’s way too soon. Even if I could let him come through, you wouldn’t understand his whistles. Things could get a lot worse.”

I gritted my teeth to keep from screaming at him to at least try.

“I’ll figure something out,” Dad said.

But I barely heard his voice. Another one whispered inside me. You know it, the voice insisted. You know the words. Look for them.

It didn’t make sense. I hadn’t heard what Malphic said. I couldn’t find it inside me any more than Jaquith could get through to Zea. I hadn’t heard—

Or maybe I had.

My mother’s kidnapping wasn’t the only time I’d witnessed Malphic open the veil.

“Don’t worry,” Chase said, glancing up toward the top of the wall as if he were contemplating climbing. “I’m not going to let you get stuck out here, like a bunch of trapped animals.”

Trapped. The word sang in my mind. Back in the harem gallery it had been the memory of being trapped in the decanter that had given me the words I needed to command the shadow-genie. Maybe. Just maybe if I followed that memory one step further, to just before Malphic ripped open the veil and hurled me out of the realm. That had to be it. There wasn’t any other time.

* * *

* * *

Not letting the memory slip from my mind, I lifted the moonstone knife and pointed it inward until its tip rested against the fortress wall. In my head, the memory of Malphic’s voice bellowed. And I repeated his words one at a time, each inflection, each rise and fall of my voice mimicking his: “What tears also opens. What burns also builds.”

I sliced the knife downward.

Blue light flashed and the wall unzipped like a tent flap. Electricity snapped around the opening, white sparks crackling.

Chase rushed in first, his scimitar at the ready. The rest of us followed close behind. No sooner were we all through and into the empty cell than the opening sealed shut and vanished.

We sprinted into the other room. Chase grabbed his discarded boots off the floor and tugged them on. Then I used the knife again to get us out of the cell and into the tunnel. My voice was stronger now, my confidence branching inside me, energizing every portion of my being.

Chase led us to the left, deeper into the tunnel’s labyrinth. According to him, it would take us to the chamber with the fight cage in the middle of it. I shuddered at the thought of seeing the room again, at the memory of having to leave him with Lotli and at what he had endured in there, fighting against the change and killing to stay alive. But Chase insisted that the fight cage chamber was the fast route to Malphic’s inner sanctum and we needed to go there. It was the closest weak point. A place I knew I could use the knife to get us back home.

The tunnel grew dark as we hurried, only a few torches still burning. Berserkers hammered on their carpeted doorways as we passed. Their screeches and howls boomed down the narrow passageway, drowning out the clip of our footsteps and the huff of our breaths. Even if every guard was busy hunting for Lotli, there was no way they could miss the riot of noise rising from this place.

Dad slid his arm around Mother’s waist, helping her keep up. Jaquith took his longer whip from his belt. We came to a short set of warded steps and once again I sliced an opening for us. Five yards more, and the mouth of the tunnel brightened. The fight cage chamber, no doubt.

Chase glanced back and put a finger to his lips, hushing us. We slowed to a tiptoe, creeping forward along the wall.

A deep voice echoed out from the chamber ahead, a guard most likely. “I wish those maggot-brained berserkers would shut up. All that noise, you’d think it was the full moon.”

“You don’t think that bitch with the flute circled back around?” another one said.

Chase motioned to Jaquith. He slipped by me and up to Chase. The two of them whispered, then slunk forward on their own, no more than shadowy outlines, rippling down the last yards of the dark tunnel toward the brighter chamber.

A jittery sense of terror and anticipation jumped inside me. I blocked out the noise of the berserkers behind us and focused on the sounds coming from ahead. There was the scrape of chair legs. Footsteps moved across the fight cage chamber toward the tunnel. Something swished, like a sword leaving a scabbard.

“Did you smell something?” one of the guards said.

I felt myself pale. Oh my God. Dad. Jaquith had thought he smelled bad, so had the Hulk when he stopped us on the way to the main palace. I sniffed my arm and caught a faint whiff of cabbage, lanolin, and cloves. The Methuselah oil. Whatever Kate and Olya had done to make it scent-free wasn’t working anymore. With their superior sense of smell, it would only be a second before the guards knew someone unfamiliar was here.

The guards’ outlines appeared in the mouth of the tunnel, muscles tensed, ready for a fight.

Chase sprang from the shadows. Crack. In one motion, he broke the first guard’s neck. He slammed the second guard in the kidney. Jaquith snapped his whip, jerking the second guard to his knees. Light flashed off Chase’s scimitar and the guard slumped to the floor dead, blood gurgling from his throat.

I scuffed back, my stomach lurching at the swift brutality of what they’d done. But my shock vanished in an instant. This wasn’t a random act of violence or uncontrolled. They were both warriors. They’d spent years in the training yard. I’d attacked Culus and his shadows minion to save my dad when he’d been possessed. I’d attacked the guy at the yacht club. The truth was, I’d have helped Chase and Jaquith now, if they’d needed it.

Whomp! Whomp! Whomp! The throb of the berserkers beating on their doors amplified, followed by more screams and howling.

“Hurry.” Chase waved us forward.

We raced past the guards’ bodies and into the chamber. A woman in warrior leathers crouched inside the fight cage, her face and hair clotted with blood. She snarled and hissed as we ran for the stairs. Halfway up, we met another guard, a lealaps with the face of a wolf. He leapt at Chase, claws like daggers. Chase ducked. I reached for my bags of salt. They were gone. I’d thrown them all at the shadow-genie. “Salt,” I yelled to Dad.

His hand dove into his robe, too slow. The lealaps spun away from Chase, his eyes narrowing on Mother.

Fuck this.

I yanked the moonstone knife from my waistline and threw myself at the lealaps, stabbing him in the side. Once. Twice. Jaquith was on top of him now, his dagger buried in the lealaps’s stomach, one jerk upward and the lealaps collapsed and tumbled down the stairs.

Chase raised an eyebrow at me. “Remind me never to get you pissed.”

I laughed and shoved the blade back into its hiding spot, but inside my relief had already vanished.

We sprinted up the rest of the stairs to the stifling-hot dining hall. Sweat drizzled down my face. The remains of my sarong clung to my skin, dirty and smeared with lealaps blood. I took a deep breath, gathering my strength.

The dining room itself was empty and quiet. But below us the sounds of the berserkers still reverberated like a heartbeat and other shouts echoed in the training yard, loud enough to come from a small army.

In the distance a bell began to toll, fast and tinny.

“The alarm,” Mother said. “Malphic knows there’s more of us here than just the hexad.”

Dad shoved back his hood. “Any suggestions?”

Chase nodded. “I’ll go into the yard first. Once I’ve got their attention, all of you can run like hell for the inner sanctum.”

I grabbed his wrist. “Don’t even think about sacrificing yourself.” I let go and pinpointed my gaze on Jaquith. “That goes for you, too. You still plan on coming with us, right?”

His eyes brightened. “If you’re willing to have me—and Zea.”

“Of course we are,” Dad said. “Now let’s get this show on the road. . . .”

As Dad quickly mapped out a more elaborate version of Chase’s plan, I became aware of a subtle cramping low in my body.

I swallowed hard and tucked my hands into the fold of my sarong so no one would notice their shaking. The last time I was here and sunrise had come and the oil had worn off, my transition from solid to ethereal had happened hard and fast—very much like the sharp, painful anguish of Lotli digging her nails into the coils on her flute. This was just a twinge, but there was no mistaking what it meant.

I tugged on Dad’s sleeve. “We need to go now.”