CHAPTER 19
Emma peeled herself from the floor. Specks of grit were embedded in her cheek. She spat a mouthful of dust and flexed her wrists. Nothing broken, it seemed.
She was in a tiny cell, lit only by slits of light around the door that had slammed behind her.
Emma threw herself at it, but it would not budge under her fists.
As her eyes adjusted to the dim light, she saw a deeper square of shadow in one corner.
It was a flight of stairs, leading underground.
With a sinking feeling, Emma recognized the silver shape etched into the first step.
The same tree she had seen on the Night City messenger’s tunic.
This was a place of the Night City, then.
Emma thought of the messenger’s smiling assurances and ground her teeth.
He had, technically, led her away from the boar-man.
Exactly as he promised. I just never asked where to, Emma thought.
So he brought me exactly where the Night City wanted me in the first place.
But there were no uniformed messengers here, no chains, no one forcing her through dark passages to a dungeon. Just the staircase leading into the earth. There was nowhere else to go.
The staircase ran so deep, roots grew down the walls.
Down and down went the spiral, until Emma’s breath was a hypnotic wave in her ears, the thud of her feet on the steps her only mark of time.
At last, the stairs ended. Emma came out into an earthen passage, its walls streaked with glowing minerals.
She stretched out a hand and felt dirt crumble beneath her fingertips.
Her mind began to slide back into focus.
The wall was real. The boar-man had been real.
Perhaps everything the Sister and the messenger had told her was real too.
That she was not a mortal; she was—something else.
That the Night City wanted her for something.
That the consequences would not be a dream she could wake up from.
Emma felt panic lock her lungs. She steadied herself against the wall.
This was not a death sentence. She was alive, and free to wander.
She would think of it as an opportunity for information.
If she could find out how and why this had happened to her, then she could find out how to undo it.
She pushed herself upright, balling her hands into fists.
To one side, the passage was cobwebbed and dank, with a single door.
But the other end of the passage glowed gold.
Emma blinked, blinded by pearlescent light, and saw in the distance a great gilded hall, held up by living trees of gold and silver.
Fruits carved from gemstones dripped from the branches.
Beneath, music floated over a crowd dressed as brightly as a bower of spring flowers, their laughter tinkling like bells.
“Oh,” Emma breathed. Was this what she had been summoned to?
The Court of the Night City. She could not think why she had been so afraid.
It was beautiful. And she would be beautiful within it.
The music would run through her like rivulets of sunlight, and she would dance.
Her feet were already servants to the melody.
They sped faster, faster, toward the golden hall.
But the harder she ran, the farther the shimmering court retreated.
The golden hall became a pinpoint of light beyond a corridor that stretched into infinity.
Winded, Emma braced her hands on her knees.
The passageway did not want her to get to the golden hall, that much was clear.
What, then, did it want? When Emma raised her head, the answer seemed to be looking straight at her.
The single door she had seen in the cobwebbed corridor was right before her, as though daring her to open it.
Squat, carved with fanciful figures of beasts and people, knobbed with a handle of raw crystal.
Emma turned the handle cautiously. The chamber beyond was octagonal, lit by a strange cold light.
Five plinths stood at its center, holding five glinting objects.
But there was nothing else. The room did not lead deeper into the Court, where she might overhear useful information.
She shut the door. Luckily, there were suddenly more to try; they now stretched down the cobwebbed passage.
Emma tried one on the opposite side. Impossibly, it, too, opened on the octagonal room.
Emma huffed out a breath, half grump, half laugh.
Stubbornly, she reached for the next door, and the next.
The octagonal room looked back at her every time.
The corridor clearly had an opinion. In some ways, she was glad of the game.
Grateful for the bite of her frustration.
It kept the cold, oily well of fear tamped down far enough to ignore it.
“You’re going to keep me here forever, is that it?” Emma tilted her face up to the ceiling. “Really? Until I go mad?”
As if in response, the crystal-knobbed door appeared again on the opposite wall. Suggestively. Emma kept walking. The door kept pace with her, always a step behind.
“It’s not a choice if you’re not given any other options,” she complained to the air.
The door slowed, almost hopefully, as her steps did.
“Fine,” she muttered. “If you insist.”
The crystal knob gleamed under her hand.
As Emma stepped into the clear, strange light of the octagonal room, her skin puckered with shivers.
She edged toward the pedestals and their tiny glittering objects.
Perhaps there was a key there, one that would let her leave the endless loop of corridor and doors, and she was meant to find it.
Something crunched underfoot. Emma felt her muscles clench. Just a chip of stone, she told herself. See how old this room is? Crumbling at the edges, ancient mortar. A chip of stone, or an old twig, or—
It was a bone, cracked under the Sister’s borrowed boot.
Emma’s eyes followed it. A slant-jawed skeleton yawned from the wall behind.
The bones were bleached with age; whoever it was had been slumped against the wall for some centuries.
Emma backed away blindly, groping for the door.
It had disappeared. There was no way out.
It was too cruel. She had been lured here, just to be buried alive.
“Mind yourself,” said a voice. It was a scratchy sort of croak, and when Emma whirled to face it, she found a figure with an appearance to match.
It was a wizened creature as tall as her waist, with skin in tones of mushroom and moss.
Its fingers were long and seemed to have a few too many joints.
Her eyes lingered on the needle-sharp nails, the same length again as those fingers.
The creature fanned these as it spoke, running them like little flaying knives across the skin of the air.
“So, there you are.” Slightly-too-large black eyes gleamed up at Emma. “Took you long enough.”
Emma squared up to it. “I’m not going to just let you kill me.” Despite her best efforts, her voice was shaking. “So, it’s in your best interest to make a deal with me.”
“Kill you?” The creature tilted its head. A membrane snapped across its eyes and away again. It seemed to be blinking. Like a snake, or a bird of prey, Emma thought. “That is not my purpose.”
“Your purpose?”
“This little once-a-mortal made a bargain with the Night City. And for bargain made must price be paid,” the creature said in a singsong croak.
“I didn’t make one,” Emma protested. “It was an accident, I didn’t mean to—”
“All who enter have made a bargain. Their own words, of their own free will. The Room of Choosing would not have admitted you otherwise. Let us see what this little one has asked for.”
Emma went still. Razor-sharp nails roved over her skin, close enough to slash.
“You were running,” the creature said. “Hunters in the night. Help, you cried out.”
The memory formed around her. The air was ice. There was blood in her mouth.
“help,” she cried out, but her breath was gone and her voice would not come
they are hunting
please oh please help
help me run help me hide
they are hunting the fox i am the fox
“There, little once-a-mortal. You see? Your bargain. An unusual one, indeed.”
“That? That was my bargain? But I never asked—I didn’t know—”
But she had. She had felt it there, in the memory. The listening dark pressing from all sides, like blades wrapped in velvet, as she ran and begged.
help me hide
i am the fox
She was shaking. Oh, it was a cruel way to interpret what she had said. What she had thought.
“The Night City made me a fox. It helped me hide.” Her voice trembled. “But why did it listen to me? I didn’t mean it.”
The creature grinned. “You were in need. You opened the way with blood. There are rules about these things. The Night City had to listen.”
Blood. The cut on her hand, spilling spatters of red to the cobbles. Jasper’s blood, shining wet on her nails. She had opened the way.
“So I did this. I made the bargain.”
“And when a little mortal makes such a bargain with the Night City, they must pay for what they receive.” The creature fanned its nails luxuriantly.
“But so generous is the Night City, it blesses these fortunate ones with immortality, so they may work off their debt. One mere hundred years of service, and they are freed.”
One hundred years. Emma’s throat constricted.
“With still greater kindness, the Night City grants every debtor the freedom to choose: how they may serve, and which of the Lower Houses they shall enter. And so they are sent here, to the Room of Choosing.”
“To you. And your wisdom,” said Emma, trying a smile. It seemed worthwhile to charm the creature. There might yet be some way to turn its friendliness to her advantage, if she could but spot it.
The creature’s eyes crinkled in return. “Indeed.”
“And there is no other way?” Emma wheedled.