“We’re not going to make it,” Ory panted. It felt like the Reds were going to crash into the hallway at any minute, right behind them.
“We will.” Malik stumbled, recovered. “All the books are packed—just have to climb in!” Their torches lurched with every step down the corridor, throwing light over the stone walls. “You have Paul’s book?”
Ory squeezed the cover until his fingers ached. “I have it,” he said as they sprinted. It felt sickeningly warm, but the plastic Imanuel had wrapped it in as he took it had kept it safe from all his blood. Ory clutched it harder.
“Turn!” Malik cried as they all almost smashed into a wall. Ahmadi skidded behind them to avoid colliding. Ory could hear that she was still crying as they ran. It made it hurt more, to know that she was as torn apart as he was. That she had loved Imanuel and Paul as much as he had. He wanted to turn around and just hold her and cry with her until the Reds killed them. But he couldn’t. He’d made a promise. He had to survive long enough to get their books to New Orleans. They careened down a set of marble stairs, into the garage level.
“Code Red!” Ory shouted.
A shrill whinny answered. Around the room, soldiers jumped up, scrambling for the order. “Vienna?” Malik shouted frantically in the chaos, and Vienna answered from across the room. Locks clicked, hinges squealed. The horses came out of their parking spaces already dressed in full regalia, saddles on and harnesses slung across their great shoulders. One soldier hooked one horse to each yoke, and his partner then climbed onto the second one to ride beside each carriage.
“Carriage one, ready!”
“Carriage two, ready!” Yells came down the line.
A dull boom echoed far overhead, then muffled cries. “They’re in the lobby,” Ahmadi cried. “Open the garage doors!”
“I’ll take rear, you take front with—the General,” Malik said to her. Ahmadi raised her bow and leapt into Watson’s saddle.
“General,” Ory protested deliriously.
“Plenty of time to argue about it later,” Ahmadi cut him off. Her eyes were still puffy, but murderous in their focus now. “First we get out of here alive and with all the books.”
“Up here!” the soldier holding the reins of the nearest carriage said frantically.
The horse at the end of the carriage’s yoke whinnied as Ory threw himself into the seat beside the young man, an ear-splitting call. “Get us out of here, Holmes,” Ory said, recognizing the animal’s sound.
An explosion on the floor above threatened to shatter the ceiling and crush them all to death. The horses lurched, shaking the carriages.
“We have to go!” Malik bellowed from the back of the line, his voice so deafening he could have been shouting right beside Ory. “Get those doors open now!” A horrible cracking sound shook the walls, and then the voices of a hundred screaming Reds rushed at them.
“They’re in!” Ahmadi cried. Blinding gray light pierced the warm glow of the torches as the garage doors finally rolled open. Ory felt Holmes surge desperately beneath him at the sight, her instinct to claw out of the gloom and into the light taking over. The carriage jolted to life like a freight train, rolling faster and faster toward the blinding, freeing glow.
“Go now! Go now! Go now!” Malik shouted as each carriage took off. Ory lost sight of Ahmadi and yelled for her, over and over. His soldier lashed Holmes’s straining back, the Reds roared; behind, Malik’s shotgun fired, thunder boomed. Ory held on to Paul’s book for dear life. “GO NOW!”
The One Who Gathers
CURLY WAS THE LAST ONE IN, SLOWED BY THE WEIGHT OF carrying the old man down the stairs. The rest of them pulled the heavy storm doors shut, and Marie clicked the padlock and slid all the boards through so the entrance was braced every few inches.
“What’s your name?” the amnesiac asked the old man. He realized he didn’t know it yet. They were all becoming so bad with names. He himself didn’t have one, and the shadowless kept forgetting theirs.
“Harry,” the old man rasped.
“Someone please get Harry some water and sit with him,” the amnesiac said.
“I’ll do it,” Downtown offered, and followed Curly as he took Harry over to a pile of blankets.
“None of you have shadows,” Harry murmured wondrously. Whatever was failing inside was getting to him—heart, lungs, exhaustion. The amnesiac could hear it in the way his words lengthened, like a song slowed down. “I wish I could give you mine, to thank you for all this. I won’t need it much longer.”
The amnesiac turned back to Dr. Avanthikar. “Are you sure you’re all right? You’re sure you’re not injured?” he asked again.
“Please,” Dr. Avanthikar snorted. “I’m not that old.”
“I’m so sorry. I was just thinking of the others. I’m—”
She swatted the air. “Stop. You did well. I would have done the same thing if I had patients.”