O’Malley shakes his head, trying to understand. “But how come when we got to the top we didn’t fall on our heads?”
I smile a little. I kept that question to myself, yet he has no problem asking it out loud.
Spingate stares at the cylinder. She seems frustrated, as if she knows all the parts of the answer but can’t quite put them together.
Aramovsky fills the silence.
“It’s obvious,” he says. “The gods don’t want us to fall down, so they make our feet stick.”
My smile fades. He’s going to talk about this nonsense again? Now?
I’m surprised to see many heads nodding, agreeing with him. To them, it isn’t nonsense at all. The word gods made eyes widen, made people stand up straight.
But why should I dismiss what he says without considering it? We didn’t think monsters existed: Then I saw one. I didn’t think gods existed, either—how can I say they don’t?
Gaston starts to laugh.
Everyone stares at him. He looks around, surprised no one else finds it funny. His laugh dies.
“There are no gods,” he says. He doesn’t sound very convinced.
Aramovsky points to the dust-drawing. “No gods? Look at that. What else could keep us from falling, Gaston? I can’t jump up and stand on the ceiling, can I? No, I would fall back down. It has to be magic, it has to be the work of the gods.”
Gaston shakes his head. “You’re wrong. It’s got something to do with the size of the cylinder.” He looks down at the drawing. “I…I can’t quite remember, but I think the reason you don’t fall is that you’re not actually standing on the ceiling.”
Aramovsky shrugs. “According to Spingate’s drawing, standing on the ceiling is exactly what we did. Are you saying Spingate is a liar?”
Gaston’s head snaps up like someone slapped him. “No, of course not.”
“So we did walk on the ceiling,” Aramovsky says. “If it wasn’t the gods that kept us from falling, how could such a thing be possible?”
Gaston glares. He doesn’t like Bishop, he doesn’t like O’Malley, but he despises Aramovsky.
The taller boy crosses his arms. “Well, Gaston? We’re waiting.”
Gaston glances at the drawing, then back again.
“Just because I can’t answer your question doesn’t mean gods are real,” he says.
Aramovsky’s smug smile shows he doesn’t feel the same.
“You should watch your mouth, Gaston,” he says. “You shouldn’t say the gods aren’t real.”
Gaston’s eyes narrow in anger. “And why is that?”
Aramovsky looks around the room as he answers, making sure that everyone sees his face, feels his confidence.
“Because saying the gods aren’t real makes them angry. And when the gods are angry, the gods punish us. They send pigs to kill Latu. They send monsters to take Bello.”
Fury wells up within me. I told him not to talk about that, I warned him.
“Aramovsky,” I say, “you need to shut—”
A booming voice cuts me off.
“The gods aren’t angry, they are testing us.”
Everyone looks to the door. Bishop stands there, his face completely covered with wet, dark-gray dust. He doesn’t look like a person anymore, he looks…he looks like a monster himself. The whites of his wide eyes blaze brightly.
“Maybe we did something wrong,” he says. “Maybe the gods are testing us to see if we’re worthy. We will show them that we are by going to the Garden and taking Bello back.”
That stops Aramovsky cold. When he speaks again, his voice is calm, soft. He’s being careful of what he says to the hulking man with a face covered in dust and spit, and I can’t blame him.
“The gods wanted Bello, the gods took Bello,” Aramovsky says. “It is not our place to try and get her back. Do you want more of us to be taken?”
Bishop’s upper lip twists into a fluttering snarl.
“I killed one of them,” he says. “Maybe the gods sent the monsters, but the gods don’t protect them. We are stronger than the monsters. We’re faster. If they try to take more of us, then we will kill more of them. We need to go after Bello right now.”
Farrar bangs a fist against his solid chest. Bawden lets out a bark of support for Bishop’s words. The circle-stars adore Bishop, are ready to follow him to the Garden.
I thought the circle-stars accepted me as the leader, but maybe that was only because Bishop did.
O’Malley stands on a closed coffin. He holds the knife at his side.
“Strength and speed don’t matter,” he says, loud enough to be heard over the circle-stars’ grunts of excitement.
Bishop sneers. “What do you know, coward? You haven’t even seen one.”
The insult hits home. O’Malley’s jaw clenches tight. He points the knife at Bishop.
“You think I’m a coward? Come and find out if you’re right.”
Bishop doesn’t hesitate. He raises his thighbone and strides toward O’Malley.