I lock eyes with Spingate, Gaston and Aramovsky. Spingate has the scepter. Gaston and Aramovsky hold thigh-bones. The weapons look clumsy and awkward in their hands.
“Stay together,” I say. “When we see a monster, hit it as hard as you can.”
They nod, wide-eyed. In times of safety, Aramovsky might argue with me, but not now.
Another scream. A boy this time, from far to our left.
And another behind us, from somewhere out in the grass.
We’re under attack.
Spingate turns in place, her hands clutching the jeweled scepter. She doesn’t know which way to go. Neither do I.
I hear Bishop roar, hear the El-Saffani twins let out a simultaneous boy/girl scream of rage. From all over the Garden, the ash-faced warriors shout in challenge and anger, their noises joining howls of pain and fear.
Doubt explodes inside me: I have chosen wrong. My plan was bad, I shouldn’t have split us into groups—we need to be together, to fight together. Fear sinks talons into me, paralyzes me yet again….
No.
Matilda must not win, must not take even one more person.
I am the leader. My people need me.
I raise my spear high: my voice booms out louder than I could have imagined possible.
“Everyone, fight your way to me!”
Spingate, Gaston and Aramovsky stare at me, shocked. From across the Garden, from all over the woods, the war cries of my people echo back. They heard me and are urging each other on.
The thicket behind me rustles. Before I can turn, an arm snakes around my stomach and a cold, bony black hand clamps down over my mouth. In that moment, I smell what is right below my nose—gnarled flesh that stinks of rot and decay and something artificial.
I’m yanked backward into the thicket. Woody stems scrape at my skin and pull my hair. I kick my legs hard, clutch at anything my fingers touch. Hands grab my feet, but these hands are warm, trying to pull me back into the light.
There is a moment where I am motionless, a living rope in a game of tug-of-war, then the warm hands slip off my feet. Vines and leaves fall away: I am through the other side. I am being dragged along a hard surface. Dark here, barely enough light to see.
My spear is gone.
(Attack, attack, when in doubt, attack.)
I grab the hand that covers my face and shove a rancid finger into my mouth. I bite down as hard as I can.
Something brittle cracks between my teeth; the taste of death squirts across my tongue.
I hear a scream that isn’t human. The hand on my face lets go, but the one around my middle holds firm and now there are two more arms clutching at me, one wrapped tight to my chest and the other over my left shoulder.
My fingers claw, my feet kick. “Let me go! I’ll kill you!”
I hear something burst through the thicket. I see the flash of my spear. The cold hands drop away. I scramble to my feet, ready to fight.
I find myself standing face-to-face with Aramovsky.
He holds the spear. The blade drips red-gray. At first I think he will also stab me, but he is wide-eyed and terrified. His chest heaves. The weapon trembles in his hands.
I turn and look at my attackers.
There are two of them, creatures barely visible in this dark place beyond the thicket. Swirling red eyes stare out. The bigger of the two is bent over, clutching its leg. Red-gray squirts through skeletal black fingers, drips down to a metal floor. There is something familiar about that monster, but I can’t place what.
The other one presses its gnarled left hand hard against its wrinkled right shoulder. Red-gray oozes down its chest and arm.
This monster is only a tiny bit shorter than me.
Just one look, and I know who it is.
I am staring at Matilda Savage.
THIRTY-NINE
It’s so dim in here I wonder if their red eyes can see what I can’t. Why would creatures of the shadows need light? The one holding its leg, it seems to stare at us. Black hands slide free of the still-bleeding wound, and it stands.
So tall.
No, it isn’t staring at us—it stares at Aramovsky.
The swirling red eyes change somehow, they soften.
The creature reaches a gnarled, blood-coated hand toward him, not in aggression this time, not to grab, but with fingers outstretched.
It reaches out like it wants to touch.
“Finally,” it says in a dry voice that sounds much like cracking thicket branches. “I have waited for so long.”
Aramovsky lowers the spear tip.
His jaw hangs slack. He blinks slowly. His shirt is no longer neat and clean—it is torn, the white stained by spreading lines of red. He must have forced himself through the thicket, ignoring the pain.
He fought his way in to save me.
And now he has eyes only for the monster, the first living thing we’ve seen in this place that is taller than he is.
“You,” Aramovsky says. “I am…am I you?”
In that whispering question is the same tone of shocked recognition I heard in my own voice when I spoke with Matilda. Aramovsky is asking, but he already knows the answer.
The mouthless nightmare nods. “Come with me. The gods say it must be so.”
Aramovsky drops the spear. It clatters against the hard floor.