The words are barely out of her mouth when my hand starts to burn. The hilt turns to fire. I move to release it, but it doesn’t fall from my grasp. It stays, holding my fingers to it. Burning them.
I yell.
The tiro in front of me startles and backs away, turning his focus on the kids who still push on the wall. He lunges after the nearest one. Heidi.
I shove myself at him, and shoulder him into the grass. Then I lift Stranna’s sword, but instead of stabbing the tiro, I strike at the wall.
The burning blade cuts through the barrier like a razor through plastic wrap. A burst of light comes through, clinging to the outline of the split curtain flapping before us. The sword falls from my scalded hand, taking pieces of flesh with it.
The children need no urging. They bolt through the flapping curtain into the dim shadow world. Those who trip are helped by older kids.
Stranna and Erik haul me up and toss me through. Then they’re through too.
As though knowing the mission was accomplished, the barrier seals itself back up, leaving Luc and his tirones dumbfounded on the other side.
Leaving us trapped on this side.
For once, I don’t mind being caged.
“We’re back in the gray soup!” a kid chirps, plopping himself on a rock.
It looks that way. Rubble and rocks, broken concrete, and everything gray and colorless. No form, no reason to the place. It’s like the junkyard where Tenebra’s Draftsman threw all the waste and excess. The only difference is that this place is cold, like the beginning whispers of winter. Not cold enough to freeze, but enough to warrant jackets.
The coliseum and surrounding areas were always the same temperature, something neutral and tolerable. Why is it different here?
I thought in passing through the barrier we’d wake up. Another rule broken.
“Who’s injured?” Stranna asks, completely tuning out the shouts and bangs from the tirones on the other side of the barrier. Perhaps she concluded as well as I did that they can’t get through. Not without one of the magical Adelphoi blades.
A few children amble her way for her to inspect their injuries. At least they’re all walking.
I look back at the scene—it’s like staring through a rippling waterfall on pause. Not quite as clear, but I see Luc gesturing from atop his stingray, and the tirones retreat. He’s not going to give up.
“It’s only a matter of time before they’re back,” Erik mutters to me. “With a plan, this time.”
“He won’t be able to get in,” Stranna says with little conviction.
“His father created this place,” I tell them. “He’ll find a loophole.”
“Hex Galilei has no more power here,” Stranna says. She believes Galilei is dying in the high-rise.
“Because you killed him?” The question comes out before I can think through the wisdom or foolishness of asking it. I plunge on. “I thought Adelphoi didn’t kill—you only die.”
“Not all of us hold to that conviction,” Stranna says quietly. “Our friend, Jeremy, attacked the high-rise.” She says this like an apology. “He hoped by killing Galilei the Nightmare world would collapse.”
“I don’t think it works that way,” I say.
“We’ll find out soon enough.” She doesn’t realize I’ve plugged Galilei’s LifeSuPod back in. Undone all of Jeremy’s work. Will it bother her or relieve her?
“Actually . . .” Stranna and Erik look at me. Waiting. I owe it to them to say what I’m about to say, no matter their reactions. “I saved him.” Silence. “Hex Galilei. I got his physical body and LifeSuPod to a source of electricity.”
Stranna looks a bit green. “That’s why you stole our truck? To save the Emperor’s father?” Her voice pitches. “You’re still on his side?”
“Galilei has the cure.” Coming from me, my defense falls flat.
“You think he’d give it to us? Tell us how to deconstruct the empire he built?” As apologetic as she sounded moments ago, she seems irritated that Jeremy’s murder didn’t pan out.
I can understand the internal conflict.
“We’ll demand it.” I spread my arms wide. “Unless you want to stay in this world of darkness.”
“For having created a so-called cure, you’re really not that much of a genius.” She beckons to the boy who has an arrow in his calf. He limps over and sits at her feet. “Neither the Emperor nor his father will give us anything.”
I don’t bother telling her that Luc rescued Galilei from the Tunnel and he’s regaining strength in the very coliseum we fled. “Nole created the cure attempt. I’ve never been the genius. I just figured out the final bits, which didn’t work anyway.”
The kids are silent under our heated discussion. Stranna seems to notice this and takes several calming breaths. “Okay, so Galilei is now getting stronger because you saved his body. We have to prepare for whatever attack he’ll launch.”
“You and Erik need to assemble a plan, because I may be dead by the time we figure out anything.”
“Dead?” Stranna looks up from tending the boy the arrow pierced. He whimpers, but she already has it out and is bandaging his leg with a cut of cloth from her toga. I suppose that’s an advantage of wearing Roman garb: trim off the hem and you have bandages without losing style.
“I have no more Sleeps, and I’m not an Adelphoi. I probably have five more Tenebra days at best.” I don’t meet her eyes. The reason I’m dying is because I betrayed them, stole her truck, and tried to save myself with a LifeSuPod. Had I stayed at the Adelphoi house, I might have had longer.
But they can’t save me now. Not with what’s happening here in the Nightmare. No one is going to wake up and use what’s left of their gas to track me down and find my body in that forest.
And I’m done always trying to rescue myself.
