“Thou art NEXT, traitor,” she told him.
She twisted the blade before pulling it out. Oedipus dropped to one knee, howling.
Electrified, the crowd spilled into the empty borderland. X heard his name called out for a third time. This time he recognized the voice. He hadn’t expected to ever hear it again.
The Ukrainian had returned.
He stood just beneath the plateau, his cherry-red tracksuit bright as a lantern.
X called to him: “Can it really be you?”
“Of course is me,” said the guard. “What kind of question? Who else is so extremely handsome?”
X was taken aback by the bounce in the Ukrainian’s voice. Did he not see that Plum was wailing on the altar?
“I did not believe that you’d actually gone for food,” said X.
The guard smiled slyly.
“Did not go for food, if you want true fact of matter,” he said. “Went for reinforcements!”
He pointed down the slope.
X turned to see Regent fly toward the altar, his robes spread like wings, and pitch the Countess down the hill.
X ran to Plum. His friend was conscious but in shock. His shirt hung open, exposing his belly. X and the Ukrainian helped him down from the altar, and lay him on the Countess’s bed. The servant woman handed Vesuvius to Plum to calm him. Plum hugged the cat to his chest. His breathing steadied, and he found X’s eyes.
“My sins,” he said. “The ceiling. Did you watch?”
“I did not,” said X, trying to smile. “That’s what friends … Forgive me, what was the expression?”
“ ‘That’s what friends are for,’ ” said Plum.
“Dionne Warwick!” said the Ukrainian. “Excellent soft music of 1980s! You know it?”
Before there was time to say more, a growl emanated from farther down the hill. The Countess was stalking up it again.
“FALL BACK, Regent!” she hollered. “These souls are the Countess’s to govern as she pleases! Thou hast no dominion here!”
Everyone on the hill went still. The Countess’s enraged face loomed above them on the ceiling. Her voice sounded loud as a god’s.
Regent was unimpressed.
“You are not a countess, and you never were a countess—in this world or any other.”
“STILL THY TONGUE OR FORFEIT IT!”
“I shall do neither,” said Regent. “I sent a soul here to seek news of his mother. I knew you to be cruel and small, but I confess I did not know how cruel and how small.” He looked at the souls spread all around. “Either you put an end to your savagery—or I shall put an end to you.”
A cheer went up on all sides. Even the guards joined in. Even Oedipus and Rex.
The Countess flew at Regent with her knife raised.
Regent blocked the blade as it came down, but the Countess swung again, this time from below, and slashed his torso. The souls who had swarmed onto the plateau crept closer, riveted. X pushed through them so he could see. Regent knocked the knife from the Countess’s hand. It skidded to a halt near Oedipus and Rex. The Countess hissed at them to bring it to her, calling them minnows and maggots.
They refused. Rex covered the blade with his boot.
While the Countess was turned, Regent locked his arms around her from behind. She screeched and threw her head back against the bridge of his nose. There was an awful crack, like lightning hitting a tree. Regent staggered and nearly fell. The Countess pressed her advantage. She grabbed Regent’s hands, and crushed his fingers together until the pain drove him to his knees. From there, she pushed him onto his back, sat astride him, and tried to drive her thumbs into his eyes.
X knew that what he was about to do was not admirable. Still, it had to be done—and he knew Zoe would approve.
He raised his boot, and kicked the Countess in the head.
She was a thousand times stronger than he, but he had surprised her.
Regent sprang free, thanked X with a glance, and lifted the Countess from the ground.
He broke the altar with her body.
A minute later, Regent stood over the Countess, who writhed in the rubble. Only now did the gold band singe her neck. X could never understand why the Higher Power took so long to make its feelings known. Maybe it resented being dragged into disputes it considered mundane, or maybe the Lowlands were too vast for it to oversee properly. Either way, X felt a rare tide of peacefulness as he gazed down at the Countess now. She was gripping the gold band with both hands, grunting nonsense and profanity and trying to peel it away so the air could cool her throat.
X and the Ukrainian returned to Plum, who lay in a rippled sea of cream-colored pillows and sheets.
“Silk,” he told them, still bleary with pain. “I always knew it would be silk.”
“Don’t get too comfortable, Plum person,” said the Ukrainian. “Is my turn next.”
The servant woman had never left Plum’s side. She smiled now, relieved to see that he was returning to himself, and tucked a few stray hairs into the white kerchief on her head. Up close, she looked to be about 30. Her eyes were blue, or maybe gray. X couldn’t quite tell, and didn’t want to stare. Her face was covered with freckles, which were dense as stars on her cheeks and grew sparser as they traveled toward her chin. The woman had already demonstrated her kindness, her courage. But X sensed that she was guarded, too—as if she were judging, with every second, who she could trust and who she couldn’t. It made telling her who he was, and what he needed, even harder.
“Speak to her, for goodness’ sake,” said Plum. He was rubbing Vesuvius under his chin with his thumbs. The cat had lifted his head to encourage him. “Tell her.”
“I agree,” said the Ukrainian. “Do not be weak at crucial intersection.”
X raised a palm to silence them. The servant woman turned to him, questioningly. Still, he didn’t know how to begin. Being so close to someone who might have known his mother, someone who might be able to tell him where she was held prisoner …
The woman saw that X was in some kind of distress, and her eyes warmed.
“They call me Maudlin here,” she said. “Which I hate. Please call me Maud.”
“Yes,” said X. “I will. Thank you. My name is X.”
“Well, that’s very—short,” the woman said, smiling. “What do your friends want you to tell me?”
X felt like there was a dam inside him, holding back the words.
He reached into his coat, and placed the silver packet in Maud’s hands. Maud seemed not to know that she was meant to open it. He nodded to encourage her. At last she unfolded the packet. He could see that she recognized everything inside.
“How?” she said. She couldn’t even look up from the collar, the button, all of it. “I don’t understand.”
“I believe they belonged to you once?” said X.
Maud, dazed, shook her head no.
X worried his voice would crack with the next sentence.
“Then I believe they belonged to my mother—whom I have never known.”
Maud lifted her eyes, and seemed to see him for the first time, to recognize his mother’s face in his own.
“My god,” she said. “You’re the son.”
“You know of me?” said X.
The recognition rippled through him like heat. He felt as if some part of himself had finally been colored in.
“Yes,” said Maud. “I was … I was there when you were born.”
X was stunned by this. He understood that it was his turn to say something, but couldn’t.
Maud filled the silence by taking the cat from Plum and saying, “Look who it is, Vesuvius! Look! It’s her son!”
“Whoa whoa whoa,” said the Ukrainian, who had hung on every word. “Vesuvius is cat?”
No one answered.
“Do you know where my mother is being held now?” X asked Maud.
She hesitated.
“Yes,” she said. “Yes. I think I do.”
“Tell me, for I mean to save her,” said X. Maud looked at him with something like pity, so he added, “You do not believe me capable of it?”
“I won’t lie—I don’t know if anyone is capable of it,” said Maud. “But since you’re her son, I’m sure no one will be able to stop you from trying.”
“My mother is stubborn, is she?” said X.
Another piece of him was colored in.