Chapter 34 #2
I purse my lips at her but concentrate on the spirits tethered to me—connected to my life force.
No longer using my own vision, I switch to the spirits in the main area of the prison.
I shift from seeing through the eyes of a teen girl spirit at the bottom of the prison, to an older man midway up, to a younger boy drifting by the rightward tower.
As I share consciousness with the teen boy spirit, I’m overwhelmed by his own pain. A performer—like Ivander—killed during a rehearsal on the Celestial. Strangled by the hanging curtains themselves, despite the other staff members trying to save him.
I’m sorry, I think to him.
The boy responds by deflecting a stray bullet with his hand. While joined with him, I feel his determination—his anger at my father.
I find Ivander climbing the beam and call on more spirits to form a cocoon of silvery, floating corpses around him. “You’re faster than I thought you’d be.” My voice comes from the boy spirit, sounding too deep in my ears.
“You’re slower than I thought you’d be,” Ivander fires back as he pulls himself up and uses his feet to brace himself. “Four guards were shooting at me with pistols before any of your spirits showed up.”
He keeps climbing, trying to make it to the bridge without falling.
He’ll need to pull himself all the way up the support beam, flanked by the two towers of emptying cells and legions of prisoners on the stairs.
Blood drips from his right shoulder, but he climbs like a spider, fast yet calculated.
Each movement of his limbs pulls him closer to the top.
His hands are steady, and only a small muscle beside his eye jumps when his foot slips.
I yell. But he catches himself.
“You screamed,” he points out, offended that I thought he might fall.
“You don’t have a net,” I say. “And pretty far to fall.”
I realize he hasn’t looked down once. He knows how far he has to fall, and we both know my spirits won’t be strong enough to catch him the longer I hold on to them. The longer he climbs, the higher he goes. The only way forward is up.
He’s two cells from the bridge now.
Although Lord Damarcus can’t see Ivander yet, he notices the clump of spirits rising to the top of the prison, level with where he’s standing.
He calls on the guards to hurry the prisoners’ progress.
With a start, I realize some of the prisoners have already traversed the treacherous stone stairs and emerged from the prison.
Even if we manage to release Leith’s potion, it won’t stop all of them.
I remind myself we don’t need to stop all of them. Just enough to make Father’s mission futile.
Ivander hauls himself past the last cells, panting now. He grits his teeth and makes the transfer from the beam to the edge of the bridge my father stands upon. A surge of elation rises in my chest—until Lord Damarcus slams his boot down on Ivander’s fingers.
Ivander shouts and lets go, dangling by one hand. I force my spirits to clump around him, creating a net of death if he falls. But the spirits are only partially solid, and I know they won’t be able to stop the momentum and weight of a falling body.
Fingers slipping, Ivander uses his one free hand to reach into the folds of his coat. He can’t possibly hold on much longer. Digging in hard with his other hand, using talons now to hold him fast to the bridge, he brings the potion bottle to his lips.
Lord Damarcus stomps hard with his boot again, this time on Ivander’s other hand. Ivander cries out in pain, but his taloned grip holds. He clamps down on the cork with his teeth and unstoppers the potion bottle.
The lid comes off.
The potion works exactly as Leith said it would.
Rain falls from Ivander’s hand. It starts as a slow trickle that smells of eucalyptus and sage and grows to a heavy downpour. Sheets of rain fall on the scores of prisoners marching from the bottom of the prison to the top.
Without warning, too many things happen at once.
Gray, Leith, Eliza, Alana, and my half-conscious body stumble out of the tunnels and across the walkway at the top of the right tower, rushing to meet my father on the main bridge.
The entranced prisoners stop dead in their tracks, even as guards and Lord Damarcus shout for them to keep walking.
Then they’re brandishing their weapons at the guards or turning them on my spirits, confused.
Lord Damarcus didn’t plan to keep the Morphics in a trance forever, but there’s no way he’s got the time to win over the awakened Morphics he’s been keeping prisoner. And he knows it.
Father lunges and wraps his fingers around Ivander’s neck.
He rips Ivander from the ledge, tearing his talons as Ivander fights to keep his grip. Ivander stays perfectly still and doesn’t try to kick or struggle. Leaving the spirit’s view and flashing back to my own, I scream.
“Don’t!” I bellow, but I’m not loud enough to be heard over the downpour of rain and echo of confused prisoners.
With another fierce tug, Father yanks Ivander by the neck, dislodging Ivander’s talons.
He plunges soundlessly through the air, too surprised to scream.