Chapter 56
Chapter
The beast’s head crashed through the spokes of the wheel overhead.
Shattered glass and metal, blood and black serum, rained down as the monster shook its head, gnashing enormous white teeth.
It stood on two thick hind legs, its long spine pitched forward.
Two shorter forearms, armed with long claws, were the perfect height to swipe a man’s head clean off.
Cold terror swept over me, numbing thoughts and limbs both.
“Ajax!” Henry called, ducking as he ran to avoid the slashing forearms. “Use Ajax!”
His voice broke through my fear. Of course. Ajax was a powerful reliq, Edgar said.
I reached out toward Ajax, and the golden warmth flooded my senses, so much power I thought it would burn out through my skin. I gathered it all, and I sent it out toward the megalosaurus’s left hind leg. Break, I willed.
A crack of bone, and the megalosarus roared, stumbling. But it didn’t fall.
The beast tried to turn, enraged and snarling, held back only by the remaining chains.
“Ed, no!” Lucy screamed, as Edgar stumbled between the pods, through the broken tubes and coils, and across the shining black pool of spilled serum. He hoisted himself into the raised vat, near the animal’s hind leg.
Edgar slammed his hand against the back ankle of the beast and closed his eyes, muttering something I couldn’t make out.
The megalosaurus went suddenly still, and a terrible silence filled the cavernous room. Bile rose in my throat as the creature’s eyes went dead and black.
Edgar smiled, sweeping his gaze to meet my eye, continuing to Henry’s, and finally settling on his sister’s.
“Libertas Magicae,” he whispered, and the ground began to shake.
I dove out of the way as a seam appeared in the earth, running down the center of the factory. Racing due south, for London. Glass and copper and iron rattled, and the wheel overhead swung precariously. The ground rippled, and I was thrown to my knees.
“Edgar! Edgar, stop!” I shouted.
That’s when I saw Buckland, sliding behind the flank of the megalosaurus and climbing into the knee-deep vat of serum. His face was grim, his fists balled.
I caught my breath. No. No. Buckland was a scholar, not a fighter. His paunch bounced when he laughed, and his hair was gray and thinning. He was going to get himself killed. Edgar ignored it all. He was focused on the crack in the earth. On pushing it south. Toward London.
But Henry saw Buckland and understood. He ran toward the two men, swaying against the bucking earth.
The motion finally alerted Edgar to Buckland, wading through the black liquid. The professor lunged. Edgar swung out with his free hand, the other clasped tight to the megalosaurus’s ankle.
“Stop, Edgar!” Lucy screamed, as she tried to catch her balance. “Please!”
A crack arched and branched across the plaster ceiling. Buckland slammed into Edgar, and a support beam above broke loose. It fell with a sickening crash, just missing Elizabeth and the unconscious man she was dragging toward the door by his ankles.
With another blow, Buckland knocked Edgar off-balance, and he lost hold of the creature’s flesh.
I screamed. Now free of Edgar’s spell, the monster roared and reared up. There were hardly any chains now, and those were snapping by the second. The remaining ones strained. The links disconnecting. Metal flying.
The wheel above, dangling overhead, groaned as its holding beam snapped at last. The spinning heart of the Loom fell in a shower of plaster and wood, metal and glass, cracking across the megalosaurus’s back. The great lizard bellowed. Edgar looked up. Buckland cried out. I screamed.
The wheel struck. The two men tumbled together in a tangle of wheel spokes and limbs, over the edge of the black tar pit. And neither rose.
I couldn’t pause. Edgar was either unconscious or dead, but the earth still trembled. A metal hook had carved a deep gash in the flank of the megalosaurus, and it was raging and wild.
“Mary! No!” Henry said.
“Help them,” I said, and shook him off, gesturing toward the crumpled forms of Edgar and Buckland.
I clambered into the vat, dodging raking claws and rattling chains. The black liquid was a knee-deep sludge.
I reached for the megalosaurus. My hands roved over pebbled gray-green skin. I drew its magic into my core as I would a reliq’s.
And with that power—like an endless, endless sea, lapping at my thoughts—I could see the land above and around us, as if I were a bird in flight.
I could see the Glasswater Mill, a red mark in the green, and then the River Thames, running to London, and the crack in the earth tracing parallel, rushing and racing, splitting the ground in two.
Stop now, I told it softly. That’s far enough, and I swear I felt the earth sigh.
I came back to the room, still brimming with gold and power. Edgar was right. This must be how God felt. Too full of power to doubt.
I looked around at the chaos, breathing hard.
Maybe Edgar wasn’t completely crazy. It would be good to have more witches. To have magic freed from reliqs and serums and slickers. No earthquake, though—surely all I had to do was wish it. Will it. And it would be so, like any old, conventional magic. A little prayer. I would just—
“Mary. Mary?” Lucy was there now, looking up at me. “I think Buckland is—” She sobbed, and I released the power, and shrank back to myself. My own small self again.
Lucy knelt at their side, her finger on Buckland’s pulse. Elizabeth wept softly, holding her father’s hand.
The megalosaurus turned its long neck to look back at me, its beady amber eyes curious and confused. I walked forward and put a hand on its broken leg, as far up as I could reach.
“Sleep well,” I managed to croak out, and then I ran as the bones tumbled down.
Lucy tried to wipe the faces clean, but the sticky serum clung to every wrinkle.
I should have waited. I should have waited—I could have used the megalosaurus as a reliq to heal Buckland. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
I crouched next to Buckland and Edgar. Blood pooled around their heads, but I couldn’t tell whose it was. I looked at Lucy.
“Buckland’s,” she whispered.
“And Edgar?”
“Only unconscious.” Her voice was thick. “But I have no power for Buckland. The tea is still blocking my magic.”
I looked around. “Where is Henry?”
“Gone.”
It hurt more than I expected. But I had no time for heartbreak.
“I’m sorry,” Elizabeth said, when I looked at her hopefully. “That horrible man took our reliqs when he tied us up.”
So, they had no magic, either. Except—
“Oh, God. Ajax!”
I raced to his cage, through the torn earth and field of bones. The aviary had fallen on its side, and Ajax was curled up, limp. I dashed away tears as I took him out, holding him to my breast.
Henry had said I’d used up the other living reliqs—that was why they died. I sobbed and stroked him, and he purred, weakly, shifting against my chest.
I’d pulled too much of Ajax when I’d woken the megalosaurus. I’d done this. I’d used him. And I would use him again.
My heart shattered as I stroked down Ajax’s spine. I sobbed harder as I carried him back, dread and sorrow thick in my throat.
Elizabeth knelt at her father’s side, murmuring comforting words. I felt like I was going to die, my heart ached so much. Buckland was alive, but barely. I only knew because Lucy had her fingers on his pulse. The professor looked a corpse, otherwise.
“I’m so sorry,” I said, and I kissed Ajax’s beak. He slowly swung his head to look at me. “I’m so sorry, so, so sorry. I love you so much. I love you.”
I couldn’t stop sobbing. But what choice did I have? I couldn’t let Buckland die. Even if it meant—
I couldn’t stomach the thought. I closed my eyes, and I reached for Ajax.
“Here.”
My eyes snapped open. Henry crouched in front of me. He opened my palm, and I closed my fingers around a trilobite.
“It will be enough for both of them.”
I nodded, chin wobbling, and dashed away my tears.
Heal them, please, I willed, and I prayed.