34. Rat In A Maze
Rat In A Maze
Hard, urgent knocking erupted on my apartment door.
It seemed to come within seconds of that first booming explosion that rattled the windows and sent dust falling from the stone ceiling.
I leapt up from the couch, and felt out for who stood outside my door.
It was Valor, my cousin.
Quicksilver was with him.
I bit my tongue, fighting to think. When the knocking started up again, I ran to the jewelry box I had on the nightstand on the other side of the bed.
I yanked it open, grabbed the gold snake bracelet Bones had given me, and performed a quick mudra and muttered an incantation to get it to wrap tightly around my arm.
I grabbed the talisman Alaric had given me next, and stuffed it into the pocket of my trousers, along with the few gold coins I’d left in the bottom of the jewelry box.
The knocking was harder thumping now, and I could hear my cousin shouting faintly through the heavy wood and even thicker cloud of chimaeras. The fact that I could hear him at all told me he was probably bellowing at full volume.
The loud, frantic knocking hadn’t stopped, and I ran up to the door, unlocking the chimaeras before I’d made it halfway across the room.
I twisted the handle and flung it open to find the two mages glaring at me. Three others stood behind them in the stairwell, along with several witches. I could only stare back at them all, panting. Valor motioned with his head towards the stairs.
“Come on,” he said only. “We’re leaving. Now.”
The witches and mages behind him immediately turned on the landing and began descending quickly down the stairs. Valor followed them last, and Quicksilver stood only a beat longer, indicating with a sharp jerk of his chin I was to go ahead of him.
I didn’t hesitate.
“Where are they?” I asked, panting a little as I ran after my cousin and the others.
“Inside the grounds,” Quicksilver growled from behind me.
“How?” I asked. “How did they get in?”
Valor’s voice rose from just ahead.
“We don’t know.”
My jaw worked as I fought to think.
“What about the others?” I asked. “Forsooth? The rest of the Golden Sun?”
“Don’t worry about them,” my cousin warned, glancing over his shoulder at me. “They have their own contingency plans. We’re to get you out. That’s all that matters.”
“Is it?” I retorted. “What about everyone else? Jolie Harringbone? Luc Mocking? Miranda Rook? Have any of them been informed? Do they even know what’s going on?”
No one answered me.
Frustration made it difficult to remain quiet, but I didn’t slow my steps. I was glad for the boots, but I could feel my exhaustion catching up to me as I jogged down the steep steps. I was sweating more than I should be, and I was too out of breath.
“What’s wrong with you?” Quicksilver asked, his voice terse.
I glanced back just long enough to frown in his direction.
I didn’t bother to answer him, but fought to think about how I might get a message to Miranda, Draken, and the others.
I could now see the Praecuri with Valor at the bottom of the circular staircase.
One of them held open the wooden door while the others ran through.
For the first time, it occurred to me to wonder something else.
“How did you even get in here?” I asked, my voice harder. “Did Forsooth break into my chimaeras? And if so, why wasn’t I informed that was something he could do?”
“He said there were no protective chimaeras on the lower floors,” Valor said, dismissive. “Nothing that wouldn’t allow us inside.”
I let out an outraged scoff. “The hell their weren’t.”
Valor glanced back at me, his eyes holding a faint puzzlement. “There weren’t, Leda. There was nothing until we got to the higher floor. I saw a kind of chimaeric field that mimicked a security barrier, but it let us through without any trouble.”
I felt something in my chest constrict.
Alarm bells were going off again, but I couldn’t decide what they meant. For the same reason, I didn’t try to answer my cousin, but focused on my feet as I ran down the steps, practically on his heels.
A few seconds later, we burst out into the north corridor.
I saw people exiting out the central part of the hall into the fields that led north, in the direction of the Faerie River and The Eyrie.
They were all talking loudly and I heard screams and cries as they shoved their way through the glass doors just behind the main tower.
I wondered why they weren’t going out the front, where the steps met with the Promenade, then realized there could only be one answer.
“They’re coming in,” I said. “We can’t go that way.”
Valor stared in the same direction as I did, his expression grim.
“Yes,” he said. “Right.”
He looked at me, a frown in his eyes, as if trying to decide.
Then he motioned with his head, and began walking me in the direction of the rapidly growing crowd.
“We have to move fast.” He stared dubiously at my state, seemingly noticing the same thing Quicksilver had, with my being out of breath and pale and whatever else.
“Can you run right now? If not, one of us can help you––”
“I don’t need help,” I cut in. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll keep up.”
His mouth pursed, but he seemed to make up his mind not to argue. He nodded, once, then began taking off down the hallway, moving fast.
“If you don’t, I’m going to carry you,” he called back.
It sounded almost like a threat.
I sped my pace to a trot, then a fast jog, then a run, when Valor began to sprint ahead of me down the hall. Quicksilver remained behind, and unlike Valor, he didn’t offer to carry me.
We reached the crowd faster than I would have expected.
I looked to my left, at the door leading to the northern balcony.
I could see them below the balcony now, running in all directions.
Some were heading west, likely in an attempt to cut through the forest and reach the gate by traveling parallel to the Promenade.
Others strapped on wings and took to the air, heading in the direction of the east entrance, likely in the hopes it would still be open.
A few others appeared to be heading due north, either aiming for the Faerie Bridge and the entrance by the river, which was located not far from Devil’s Fall, or heading for The Eyrie, maybe in the hope of grabbing a set of wings.
I watched them all go, thinking, fingering the talisman in my pocket.
“We should go out that way,” I said.
“No.” Valor shook his head, lengthening his strides as he created a path through the crowd. He held out his arms and squared his shoulders to shield me, and I fell in behind him, using his bulk to avoid running into the panicking mages and witches.
We were the only ones moving east, instead of north.
“We need to get you out of here,” Valor continued shortly, speaking under his breath. “Our best bet is still our original destination. We can make it.”
I knew what he meant, and why he didn’t want to say it out loud while we were surrounded by panicking Magicals. Forsooth had a mirror in his tower. Valor obviously intended for all of us to go there, as we’d originally planned, and to mirror out of there.
Did we even know if that mirror was functional, though?
Blackstone said he and Forsooth hadn’t been able to use it to get back from London, just a few days ago, not without a specific journey scheduled. Was that only true of Magicals trying to get into Malcroix Bones, or was it true of mirroring in either direction?
If requests went through any governmental body, Dark Cathedral wouldn’t approve any mirror uses from here, certainly not now.
Did those requests need to go through someone in the London government, though?
Or was that something that got approved here, inside Malcroix itself?
Whatever the answer to those questions, it struck me as risky as hell.
“It’ll be fine,” Valor said, as if picking up on my doubts.
I fingered the talisman again.
I wondered if I could make it to Valarian, or if that would be suicide.
Could I even help my friends at this point?
Surely they had to know what was going on by now.
They could likely see more from the Valarian windows than I could at the back of Malcroix Mansion.
They would’ve seen all the people fleeing the main building by now, and probably whatever was going on at the southern entrance.
“Halt!” A voice shouted.
Valor turned his head, following the sound.
I knew I shouldn’t, but I looked over my shoulder, too.
A row of black-uniformed mages and witches stood there, their hands sparking and glowing with magic as they held contained spells, ready to use.
One of them met my gaze directly, and she smiled.
Fuck.
Sirena.
“Run!” Valor bellowed.
He began crashing through the crowd, shoving younger witches and mages out of the way. I followed as fast as I could, and heard a hiss as a flaming ball of magic looped around and through the crowd, heating my face as I only just jerked out of the way.
I threw up a shield, then my hand was back on the talisman.
“Evanescere,” I whispered. I gripped the talisman tightly.
My arm and body disappeared around me.
I heard Quicksilver react first.
“Fuck!” He let out a few more curses in another language. “She’s gone!”
I changed directions at once, letting myself be pulled along with the crowd towards the nearest door to the northern fields behind the school.
I still got a few strange looks as I let myself be carried along, when students and one of the kitchen staff ran into me and couldn’t figure out what they’d bumped.
Still, the disruption was minimal with me moving the same direction as everyone else. Quicksilver and probably Valor would definitely have noticed if I’d tried to continue moving against the crowd.
I only had five minutes before the talisman’s charm would wear off, and I’d be visible again.
Behind me, I heard a rage-filled screech that echoed up and down the halls.
“WHERE IS SHE?” Sirena screamed. “WHERE IS SHE?”