Chapter 29
hen I tip my head back and look upward, I see no end to the blackness, just yawning emptiness, a dizzying void that seems to go on forever. It might be an infinite sky above us, devoid of stars.
This is no natural cave. No ordinary sky. This is spellcraft, as old as the world itself, handiwork of the Gods.
The city before us is massive. It sprawls over what seems like miles, with buildings on buildings, spindly towers, bridges and ropes crisscrossing over layers upon layers of civilization.
Thousands of lights flicker in the windows, in dim shades of amber and gold, and reflect off the lake’s surface.
Cygnus and I follow the lights, like illuminated pinpricks on a walking path, wading through the shallows toward the beach’s pebbly shore, which splits a pair of craggy bluffs.
My eyes are ahead: on the city, and in particular the massive onyx structure that juts twice as high as the next-tallest building. It can only be Queen Soleste’s castle.
“What do we do when we get there?” Cygnus asks.
“Find food.”
I feel like garbage. My clothes are in tatters, and I don’t dare touch the tangles that have replaced my hair. Not the most inviting condition in which to make friends.
“We’ve got to get dry,” says Cygnus, reading my mind.
“And find water,” I add. “Water first.” My throat is ragged.
Slowly, we walk toward the city. The closer we draw toward the Elven kingdom, the more something seems off in the air.
Our path meanders over uneven terrain, and it’s all I can do to keep my feet beneath me.
Silence falls—spooky silence—the overwhelming kind.
Buildings perch on the sloping hills like dark birds, their beady orange eyes marking our approach with disdain.
When we reach the first dwellings scattered along the outskirts, I’m surprised: These are more hovels than homes.
The buildings are short and square, hewn from stone and metal.
The streets are deserted. There’s no sun to tell time by.
I see no children at play, no one traversing the narrow streets as they do in Crown City.
The only animals I spot are scrawny, white-tailed rats. All lies eerily still.
As we approach the city’s heart, the condition of the city doesn’t improve.
Everything is harsh and austere…joyless.
There’s nothing of Verdinae’s charm. The closer I look, the more I see: walls spiderwebbed with cracks, dwellings without roofs, bricks and rags and other rubbish strewn through the streets or clustered near doorsteps.
Dread fills me, my worst fears confirmed. There may have been Elves here at one point, but they are gone now. Cygnus’s dream of rallying an Elven army to take back Evermore is just that, a dream.
I glance over at him. His expression is determinedly blank, but I can feel his disappointment. I find myself tempted to reach for his hand to comfort him, but I stop myself.
But as we near what seems to be the city’s central plaza, Cygnus and I finally hear some commotion.
There are voices and milling footsteps, plus the hissing sounds of a working stove. My heartbeat quickens.
That’s when we start to notice signs of life: a shutter closing, a cough, the low voices of families talking inside their homes.
Someone pushes a cart past, too quickly to notice our bedraggled figures.
The noise grows. We turn into the main square to find a market, with hundreds of people bustling around open-air booths and vendors. Music wafts from somewhere nearby.
I look over at Cygnus, unable to stop my spreading grin. When he smiles back, I once again have the odd urge to hug him—which drives my heart rate higher still.
Everywhere I look, I see tapered ears. There are some girls wearing kerchiefs like mine but tied back so the points of their ears are shown prominently.
The fashion is different than in Verdinae; there are more subdued colors and less extravagant fabrics, but the silhouettes are more daring.
Everyone’s bodies are freer. The women and men wear their hair long and flowing, and I spot far more beards than in Verdinae.
There’s a bonfire toward the middle of the square, and I see a pair of young girls sitting beside it, tossing a rippling sphere of fire back and forth the way human children might play with a ball. I gape at them, awestruck.
I could spend hours people-watching, but I need water. We both need help. Our journey through the lake left me exhausted past dignity. Not thinking too much, I home in on a woman at a nearby booth.
“Excuse me. Could you help us?” My voice emerges an octave lower than normal, raspy and thick. “My friend and I, we just…” I swallow, not sure how to describe what we’ve just been through. “We’ve just arrived. Please, if you have any water…”
The woman’s brow furrows in confusion. A spread of trinkets and buttons lie scattered on the table before her. She is old, her face a web of wrinkles between long, tapered ears. I wonder how many hundreds of years she has lived, how much she has seen.
“Just arrived?” she repeats, looking dazed. Her eyes shoot between Cygnus and me, her gaze snagging on his ears. She gasps, and plain horror washes over her features. “Is he human?”
My head swivels. “No! Well, half—”
“My mother is Elven,” Cygnus explains, stepping forward. “We’ve just come through the gate.”
She points a bony finger at him. “You’re lying! No one comes in or out of Ruin! You must be one of the queen’s tricks!”
No one goes out? I think, but I don’t have time to focus on her words.
“No, he’s my friend!” I try to amend quickly. “He’s one of us—”
But the old woman just starts shrieking, “Spies! SPIES! HEEELP!”
Cygnus curses. The screams have caught the attention of dozens of onlookers. They don’t mob us all at once, but they close in slowly as Cygnus and I wheel around, looking for somewhere to run.
“No, please!” I stagger backward. “You misunderstand!”
The woman continues screaming, “HEEEEELLLLP!”
“Please, we don’t want any trouble,” I plead, lifting my hands in surrender. There is no will left in me to fight, not after all we’ve endured and conquered. The last thing I want to do is hurt anyone else. As the Elves surround us, shouting and hurling accusations, my relief sours into confusion.
These are my people.
My people.
And I can’t let them hurt Cygnus.
When two big male Elves grab him, I lunge.
“Let him go!” I try to yank the nearest one’s arm. He shakes me off like I weigh nothing, growling, “He’s human!” like that’s a crime in itself.
“NO!” Cygnus shouts. “I’m half-Elven! I came through the Everwillow! Please—”
Someone grabs my arms, and I see red.
“Get OFF me!” I howl at the Elf who grabbed me.
I kick back, aiming for his sensitive bits, but he twists to avoid it, lifting me clean off the ground, so I’m left thrashing like a child.
It’s the second time I’ve been matched for strength in a fight, and my ego doesn’t take well to defeat. “LET ME GO!”
“Wait!” cries Cygnus. “There’s been a misunderstanding—”
A voice cuts straight through the chaos. “ENOUGH!”
It sounded from behind me. I thrash harder, trying to turn and face it, but the man who grabbed me has my arms pinned. I hear soft footsteps, then shuffling, the sounds of a parting crowd.
I smell her first.
Cinnamon and soil and warm bread.
And I can’t stop the rush of tears as I choke out, “Mother!”
She flings the hood of her cloak back as she draws forward. “Let her go. They’re with me.”
Cygnus and I get released at once.
She looks different, and it’s not just the light. Instead of her usual garb, she’s dressed entirely in black. Her dark eyes look different as they sweep over me—harder, somehow. And her hair isn’t piled into its crown of braids; it’s wild and long, disheveled.
Her eyes are solely focused on me, but I can’t read her expression. I’m torn between screaming at her and begging for forgiveness, but Mother doesn’t give me a chance to speak.
“Follow me,” she says. Her gaze flits over to Cygnus. “You too.”
Without waiting for a response, she turns and hurries through the crowd. Cygnus and I exchange a glance before we silently follow.
Mother leads us to another area of the city that looks identical to the first few streets we passed through—abandoned, with worn homes on the brink of destruction. She finally stops in front of a run-down building, pulls out a rusted key from her pocket, and turns the lock with a click.
“Why did everyone listen to you?” I ask as she creaks the door open. “How did you find us?”
“Get inside first,” she says. “Then we’ll talk.”
Cygnus and I follow her inside, up two flights of stairs, and into a tiny apartment.
When she shuts the door behind us, Mother fastens three locks.
Then she traces runes in the air with her fingertips, murmuring incantations of safety and concealment.
I’ve seen Mother express many things—anger, disappointment, annoyance—but I have never once seen her afraid. Right now, she looks terrified.
I look around at the space, which is about half the size of our cottage.
It’s far more run-down and grimy than any home we’ve stayed in together.
But as I scrutinize my surroundings, I can see Mother’s touch—the flowers strung across the ceiling, the spellbooks on the narrow shelf, the altar in the corner with a golden figure of Elowyn.
Mother lives here. Or at least she did, once.
Cygnus and I stand awkwardly near the doorway as Mother finishes her spellwork. When she’s done, I expect her to yell at me. I expect her to tell me what a disappointment I’ve been. I expect her to list all the things I’ve done wrong in her absence.
What I don’t expect is the hug.