Zoe was about to answer, when she heard footsteps. She took a flashlight from the supplies littering the ground—Dallas, in his optimism, had already written MINGYU on it—and swept the road. She saw nothing. Still, she had the prickly sensation that someone was racing just ahead of the light. Taunting her. She made a faster circle, trying to catch up with them. Nothing. No one. There was a noise near the cliff. She jerked the flashlight back. She saw— Dervish.
She’d never seen him before, but it had to be him. He was repulsive: fussily perfect white robes, tacky diamond jewelry, sunken cheeks, skin the sickly gray of meat that had been left on the counter for days. Zoe felt only fury when she looked at him. He had persecuted X relentlessly. He’d leveled her family’s house while Jonah, terrified, hid in an empty freezer in the basement.
She told Val to stay where she was. She walked toward him. Whatever part of her brain was supposed to light up when she was in danger had been overtaxed for too long. The bulb had burned out.
“I know who you are,” she said. “And I know you can’t hurt us.”
“Regent divulged that, did he?” said Dervish. “Along with being a traitor, he takes the fun out of nearly EVERYTHING. Yet ask yourself if you are absolutely certain that I won’t kill you anyway, and deal with the consequences later. Do I SEEM predictable?”
He raised a hand and somehow deflected the flashlight beam away from his face, like his palm was a mirror.
“Why are you here?” said Zoe. “What do you want?”
She’d expected him to be furious, but he seemed … amused. Curious. Zoe could tell he was sizing her up, trying to understand how she could have inspired so much rebellion.
“Oh, I want so many things,” said Dervish. “I shall begin with the most pressing: I want you to abandon your search for X’s father.”
“Why?” said Zoe. “Why do you care—except that you’re dead and obviously a dick?”
“How brazen you are!” said Dervish. “What on earth are they teaching girls up here these days?”
He didn’t seem to expect an answer.
“Science,” said Zoe. “Core strength. How to stand up to assholes.”
Dervish smiled. His mouth was practically lipless. It looked like it had been sliced into his face with a knife.
“You amuse me, Zoe Bissell,” he said, “so I shall tell you why I won’t let you find X’s father. It’s because it will jeopardize the secrecy of the Lowlands—and because I am MORTALLY sick of the trouble you cause. Shall I tell you something funny? You have already SEEN X’s father. He stood in the storm begging for assistance. You and your mangy friend sailed past him without a care.”
Zoe flinched: the man by the car.
“No clever reply?” said Dervish. “No riposte? Good. Listen to me, little girl. The more you encourage X, the more I shall make him suffer. It’s simple physics: for every action, a reaction. As Sir Isaac would say, Actioni contrariam … Actually, never mind. You don’t strike me as someone who speaks Latin. I have made my point.”
“X is innocent,” said Zoe.
“I DO NOT CARE,” said Dervish. “The Lowlands aren’t a country estate. If one soul breaks its laws, a thousand others will follow suit. You have given X hope, which anyone can tell you is fatal. Was it you who inspired X’s mad quest to find his mother? Does he believe that if he finds her you will love him more?”
Zoe meant to say nothing.
“He’s doing it for himself,” she said.
“Is he?” said Dervish. “Or is he doing it to impress YOU—to prove that he is worthy, that he is WHOLE? Now I must find him, and punish him just as I punished his mother. I must dump him into a hole inside a hole inside a hole—somewhere the light cannot find. All because you ‘loved’ him.” He waited for a reply, and when Zoe didn’t speak he added, “You were not as fierce an adversary as I had hoped. Go home, Zoe Bissell. You are not needed anymore.”
Val crossed the road to lead Zoe back to the car. Dervish noticed her partially shaved head, and called out, “Was it lice?”
With a bored flick of a finger, he opened a portal to the Lowlands in the cliff. Zoe watched as it turned orange, then red, then orange again.
“Didn’t you ever love anybody?” she said.
Dervish surprised her by answering.
“You expect me to say no,” he said. “Yet I did. Not in the way you think. It ended tragically, as love of every kind always does. Believe this or not, but I am doing you and X a kindness.”
Val tried to steer Zoe away but Zoe wouldn’t turn from Dervish. Couldn’t. The image of X in some hole, lonelier even than before she met him—she couldn’t shake it.
Dervish seemed to know her thoughts.
“What you have done is impressive, in a way,” he said. “You have taken someone whose life was already a misery and made it a hundredfold worse. X sacrificed what little he had for you. Tell me, what did YOU ever sacrifice for him?”
Dervish lit the far side of the road with a sweep of his hand.
The dead mountain lion rose up out of the weeds.
It shook the hail from its coat—it looked as though it were shedding stars—and slunk toward Zoe and Val, the black tip of its tail sweeping the ground.
“I must leave you,” said Dervish, turning to the portal. “My friend here will see to it that you pursue X’s father no further.”
The mountain lion came slowly at first, its back undulating up and down, like its body was made of water.
“Get on my back,” said Val. “Get on my back.”
Zoe looked at her, bewildered.
A half second went by.
“What’s wrong with you!” said Val. “Do it!”
Zoe climbed on her friend’s back, as if she were riding piggyback, and only then did she understand: the way to scare off a predator was to make yourself big, to make yourself loud.
The mountain lion picked up speed. Its eyes shone green.
“Flap your coat!” said Val.
Zoe did as she was told, but even now, she was thinking about X and watching Dervish walk to the swirling hole in the cliff.
She felt herself wave her raincoat like wings. It was like someone else was doing it.
Dervish looked back at them, grinning.
He knew where X’s mother was. He was going to dump X into a hole inside a hole. What had Zoe ever sacrificed?
Val wobbled beneath her. She screamed threats as the mountain lion charged: “GET AWAY! WE’RE NOT DEER! DO WE LOOK LIKE DEER?!”
Zoe heard herself start screaming, too. She didn’t know what words she was using, or if they even were words.
Dervish was almost at the portal.
Val staggered beneath her, losing her balance. She was strong, but not much bigger than Zoe. They fell to the ground just as the mountain lion leaped.
Zoe felt a rush of air. She saw the cat’s claws, the white fur of its belly.
The animal shot over their heads, and disappeared down the road.
Dervish had been bluffing. Zoe knew that now. The ram and the mountain lion had confirmed what Regent had said: the Lowlands could not kill her.
She threw off the helmet and raincoat and gloves.
“I’m going to be okay,” she told Val. “Don’t worry about me.”
“What are you talking about?” said Val.
They were both winded, panting.
“Don’t tell anybody where I am,” said Zoe. “Make something up.”
“What are you talking about?” said Val. “You’re scaring me.”
Dervish vanished into the hole in the cliff. The portal was orange.
Zoe sprinted across the road. Val shouted something at her, she didn’t know what.
Zoe rushed through the portal after Dervish.
It had just gone red.
Up close, it looked like a ring of fire.
twenty
Her clothes were drenched when she woke. She had no memory of why. A Roman in a belted tunic carried her down a tunnel.
The pain in Zoe’s head was ferocious. An electrical storm. She managed to focus on the Roman: He had big, watery eyes and a cloud of curly black hair. He had to be seven feet tall. His arms were like tree limbs, and he hummed nervously, tunelessly as he walked. When he noticed that Zoe was awake, he caught her eye, then looked away fast, like she was the scary one.