“Let’s hope it doesn’t!”
We shook harder. Screws and bolts began to rain down. The rail was lurching so violently, I could hardly keep hold of it. I heard Golan scream a spectacular array of curses, and then something clattered down the stairs, landing nearby.
The first thing I thought was, Oh God, what if that was the birdcage—and I dashed down the stairs past Emma and ran out on the floor to check.
“What are you doing?!” Emma shouted. “He’ll shoot you!”
“No, he won’t!” I said, holding up Golan’s handgun in triumph. It felt warm from all the firing he’d done and heavy in my hand, and I had no idea if it still had bullets or even how, in the near darkness, to check. I tried in vain to remember something useful from the few shooting lessons Grandpa had been allowed to give me, but finally I just ran back up the steps to Emma.
“He’s trapped at the top,” I said. “We’ve got to take it slow, try to reason with him, or who knows what he’ll do to the birds.”
“I’ll reason him right over the side,” Emma replied through her teeth.
We began to climb. The staircase swayed terribly and was so narrow that we could only proceed in single-file, crouching so our heads wouldn’t hit the steps above. I prayed that none of the fasteners we’d shaken loose had secured anything crucial.
We slowed as we neared the top. I didn’t dare look down; there were only my feet on the steps, my hand sliding along the shivering rail and my other hand holding the gun. Nothing else existed.
I steeled myself for a surprise attack, but none came. The stairs ended at an opening in the stone landing above our heads, through which I could feel the snapping chill of night air and hear the whistle of wind. I stuck the gun through, followed by my head. I was tense and ready to fight, but I didn’t see Golan. On one side of me spun the massive light, housed behind thick glass—this close it was blinding, forcing me to shut my eyes as it swung past—and on the other side was a spindly rail. Beyond that was a void: ten stories of empty air and then rocks and churning sea.
I stepped onto the narrow walkway and turned to give Emma a hand up. We stood with our backs pressed again the lamp’s warm housing and our fronts to the wind’s chill. “The Bird’s close,” Emma whispered. “I can feel her.”
She flicked her wrist and a ball of angry red flame sprang to life. Something about its color and intensity made it clear that this time she hadn’t summoned a light, but a weapon.
“We should split up,” I said. “You go around one side and I’ll take the other. That way he won’t be able to sneak past us.”
“I’m scared, Jacob.”
“Me, too. But he’s hurt, and we have his gun.”
She nodded and touched my arm, then turned away.
I circled the lamp slowly, clenching the maybe-loaded gun, and gradually the view around the other side began to peel back.
I found Golan sitting on his haunches with his head down and his back against the railing, the birdcage between his knees. He was bleeding badly from a cut on the bridge of his nose, rivulets of red streaking his face like tears.
Clipped to the bars of the cage was a small red light. Every few seconds it blinked.
I took another step forward, and he raised his head to look at me. His face was a stubble of caked blood, his one white eye shot through with red, spit flecking the corners of his mouth.
He rose unsteadily, the cage in one hand.
“Put it down.”
He bent over as if to comply but faked away from me and tried to run. I shouted and gave chase, but as soon as he disappeared around the lamp housing I saw the glow of Emma’s fire flare across the concrete. Golan came howling back toward me, his hair smoking and one arm covering his face.
“Stop!” I screamed at him, and he realized he was trapped. He raised the cage, shielding himself, and gave it a vicious shake. The birds screeched and nipped at his hand through the bars.
“Is this what you want?” Golan shouted. “Go ahead, burn me! The birds will burn, too! Shoot me and I’ll throw them over the side!”
“Not if I shoot you in the head!”
He laughed. “You couldn’t fire a gun if you wanted to. You forget, I’m intimately familiar with your poor, fragile psyche. It’d give you nightmares.”
I tried to imagine it: curling my finger around the trigger and squeezing; the recoil and the awful report. What was so hard about that? Why did my hand shake just thinking about it? How many wights had my grandfather killed? Dozens? Hundreds? If he were here instead of me, Golan would be dead already, laid out while he’d been squatting against the rail in a daze. It was an opportunity I’d already wasted; a split-second of gutless indecision that might’ve cost the ymbryes their lives.