Lusk stopped. The woman was breathing hard. ‘Fell-Noon?’
She came cautiously into the room, seeming to look all around her at once. She took in the bats sleeping peacefully in their alcoves and the wide strip of blue sky above them where they entered and exited the building.
‘I still have plenty left,’ she said, and as if to demonstrate this, the flames curling around her hand rose a few inches, eating up more of the air. ‘I will use it.’
Lusk lifted his hands, palms out. ‘Fell-Noon, you should be in your cell.’
‘Oh, do you think so?’ She glared at him, coming closer. Abruptly, she reached up and pulled the green scarf from her head and cast it onto the floor. Doing so seemed to give her a great deal of satisfaction. ‘I have to get out of here. Now.’ She swallowed. He got the impression that talking this much was hard. Without the scarf, her short black hair stuck up at all angles. ‘I’m not dying in this place.’
‘No one has to die. I can take you back downstairs.’ Lusk kept his voice soft, trying not to think about how terrible it would be to burn to death. He had seen this woman many times in the furnace rooms, and while there had always been a contained anger about her, she had never seemed especially unstable. Now her eyes were wild, and her posture was that of an animal about to flee. Or attack. ‘I’ll tell them you got lost, and I’m sure it’ll be fine. Just a misunderstanding.’
‘No.’ She came further into the room. The flames around her hand were starting to die down, and he knew that wherever she had stolen the living energy from, it would be running out now. Soon, he would be safe to try and overpower her, except that he was wearing only a loose work vest. If she got close, she could take his energy too – just as she did in the purging sessions. ‘Get one of them ready.’ She gestured to the bats.
‘You cannot mean to leave here! Fell-Noon, it’s not safe—’
‘Not safe? Not safe for who?’ She rubbed her forehead with her free hand, wiping away ashes to bare streaks of her own olive skin and the spidery lines of the bat-wing tattoo that marked all fell-witches. ‘This place isn’t bloody safe. Do it.’ She suddenly advanced on him, holding her hands out. The green flame died, but there was still that wild look in her eye. ‘Hurry up.’
He turned away from her and approached the nearest bat. It was a female with pearly white fur and a soft grey muzzle. He picked up the whistle at the base of her alcove and gave three short blasts. Each bat was trained to wake and obey on command. The bat shivered all over, and peeled back a wing to peer at him curiously. Eyes like pools of ink wrinkled at the edges.
‘Morning, Fulcor,’ he said softly. ‘Come on down for me.’ The bat scampered down, walking on her wing-feet until she stood in the middle of the chamber. She yawned hugely, revealing a bright pink mouth studded with alarming teeth. Lusk fetched the newly repaired harness and set about attaching the contraption. He could feel Fell-Noon watching him intently.
‘Do that properly,’ she said suddenly. ‘I will know if you haven’t. I used to ride horses.’ She stopped and took a breath. ‘When I was small, I had my own horse.’ She ran her hands through her hair, making it even messier. ‘I had a dream. I’m not supposed to have dreams in here, but I did. The worm people came and tore this place apart. You were there, but you were empty inside.’
Lusk felt his skin grow cold. Surely she was mad, then. Ten years in this place, brought here at the age of eleven, and the monotony and the quiet had broken her, as it sometimes did – she wouldn’t be the first fell-witch to have lost her mind. ‘The Jure’lia? They haven’t attacked for hundreds of years.’ He pulled another strap home and patted Fulcor’s furry forehead. ‘I’ve heard some say the Eighth Rain will be the last.’
Fell-Noon shook her head. ‘It was too real. It was dark, and everyone panicked, trying to get out of the doors. They suffocated. Fell-Marian had creatures inside her, eating her up.’ She came over to him, looking at the bat. ‘Is it ready? I have to get out of this place.’
But Lusk had stopped. Her words had unsettled something in his own mind. ‘People fell, and they couldn’t get up?’
‘Yes,’ she said irritably. ‘And then I was outside. Their creatures were in the sky, floating over Mushenska.’
‘And the dead littered the beach,’ Lusk replied faintly. He had completely forgotten it. A terrible dream he’d had days ago, bad enough to have woken him in his small bunk, but then, on waking, it had fallen away into pieces, too vague to recall. ‘There was a woman behind me, and she said they were coming back.’
‘Their queen,’ agreed Noon. She narrowed her eyes at him, her voice becoming softer. ‘You had it too?’
Lusk ran his fingers through Fulcor’s fur. He should jump for the pulley. He thought he could probably make it, now that she was distracted. But a terrible cold was keeping him in one place. ‘How did you know?’ he asked. ‘How did you know it was them?’
‘What else could they fucking be? And I’ve been looking at one my whole life, just like you have.’ She gestured angrily at the strip of sky above them, and he knew she was talking about the corpse moon. With a feeling like a cold finger down his back he remembered that it had been alive, in his dream.
‘What does it mean?’
‘What it means is, I’m bloody leaving this place. Before they get here. And destroy everything.’
Noon went around to the bat’s hindquarters, where the animal was crouched lowest to the floor. She climbed on cautiously, pulling herself across Fulcor’s muscled back to settle her legs into the saddle – riding a bat meant sitting with your legs bent at the knee and your own body thrown forward. Lusk still stood there unmoving, his chest filled with a weight of dread, until she gestured at him impatiently. He realised he was still holding the silver whistle, so he handed it over to her quickly. She was in contact with Fulcor now, and could choose to take the bat’s energy if she wished.
‘Her name is Fulcor,’ he said, not sure why he was speaking at all. ‘Three short blasts to wake her up, one long one to bring her to you, if she’s close enough, and four blasts to dismiss her. She will stay with you, as long as you have the whistle, and she knows all the basic commands. They’re trained that way. She’s – she’s a friendly sort, this one. Has a bit of an independent streak. Some of the agents, well, they prefer a more obedient bat, but . . .’ He trailed off, aware that he was babbling now.
‘What will you do?’ she asked. Her voice was tense, her eyes bright with an emotion he couldn’t read – they looked black, almost as black as Fulcor’s.
‘I will sound the alarm, of course. They will send agents after you, and I will be disciplined for letting this happen.’
For a moment she said nothing. She glanced up at the sky, biting her lip.