He heard noises then, shouts and the cricking and cracking of footsteps. It all became a painful blur to him, and he figured it didn’t matter much anymore. He hurt, and that was that.
Someone rolled him onto his back, and that was the last straw. He jolted to his elbows and threw up to the side. When he finished, he flopped back flat to the ground and grimaced as a fresh wave of agony punched its way through his skull and down his spine.
“Tick?” said a soft voice. A girl. It took him a few seconds to recognize Sofia’s voice, and his heart lifted. “Tick, are you okay?”
He wanted to tease her that she’d just asked him the dumbest question in history, but he figured that raising his voice—even talking at all—would hurt too much. So instead he mumbled something. Not even a real word, just an acknowledgment that he’d heard her. He still refused to open his eyes, terrified of the light.
He heard a crunch of ground covering right next to him and figured someone had knelt there.
“Master Atticus?” That was definitely George, and his heart lifted a little more. “Goodness gracious me, boy. What on earth has happened here?”
“Yeah, man. Quit napping down there and talk to us.”
Paul. The relief inside Tick was swelling more by the second. At least his friends were safe, and he wasn’t dead. Things could’ve been a lot worse.
“Really, Paul?” Sofia said. “Even now you have to be sarcastic? Look at that nasty gash on his head. We’re lucky he didn’t bleed out.”
“I’m sure he wanted to hear that,” Paul muttered back.
“Sato, what happened?” Master George asked.
Sato too? Tick thought. This was too good to be true. Maybe he was having one of those dreams where you see all your friends and loved ones before you died. That thought jolted him back to reality.
He sat up, the pain like strikes of lightning in his head. “My family. My mom. Lisa. Where . . .”
The pain and nausea were too much. He passed out again.
Lisa was starting to accept the fact that she was about to die.
It surprised her how easily the realization came. Although she felt a terrible sadness, it wasn’t really about death itself. It was more about not seeing her dad and Kayla and Tick before she went. At least she had her mom.
They’d been silent for so long now. After a couple hours of trying to move the rocks and debris that blocked their exit from the Great Hall, they’d finally given up. Almost nothing would budge, and the one chunk of stone they were able to move was instantly replaced by several more from above. There was no sign of daylight in any of the cracks. What an awful way to die. They’d either starve or suffocate.
With cheerful thoughts like those, she’d resigned herself to sit with her mom, holding each other as they waited for the inevitable.
She was just thinking how stuffy the air had become when she heard a scrabbling sound near the exit, as though an animal was trying to burrow its way through the stack of debris. Then there was a crunching, some cracks, and the hollow scrape of stone against stone. Dust billowed out from the mess as rocks began to shift and collapse. Lisa didn’t know what to think, but refused to let herself feel any hope as she waited to see what was happening.
Finally a huge section of the rubble shifted and slid away, leaving a huge gap, choked with dust. A robed figure appeared, hunched over and filthy. Mistress Jane stepped into the room, the light from the lone torch barely reflecting off her dirty red mask.
Mordell lost every ounce of her usual reserved demeanor. “Master!” she yelled. “Master, you’re alive!”
“For now,” she said in her raw, scratchy voice—it sounded weaker than ever. “Come. We have a lot of work to do.”
Chapter 31
From Head to Toe
When Tick came to his senses again, the pain in his head had lessened a bit. The tiniest, tiniest bit. But the nausea was gone, and it didn’t seem like the whole world would swim away from him at any second.