CHAPTER 14
CEONY EXPECTED TO REEMERGE somewhere else in the barn, somewhere that would give her a good shot for the door, but when she tripped out of the mirror frame on the other side, she stumbled into near darkness, the smells of wood and rot assailing her.
This wasn’t the barn, but it didn’t matter.
Pushing herself up, Ceony grabbed the frame of the rippling mirror and threw it down with all her might, breaking it into several pieces. The rippling ceased, but Ceony jumped on the larger pieces anyway, splitting them beneath the heels of her shoes.
Wincing, she staggered backward, favoring her right leg. Her left ankle throbbed fiercely, almost as badly as her cheekbone did.
She breathed heavy breaths that echoed through the dark emptiness around her and wheezed like October wind. Ceony coughed, then coughed again, her hand flying to her sore throat. A third cough almost made her retch, but her desperation for air kept the contents of her stomach down. She swallowed twice, still watching the mirror. She had no paper for a blind box. She had nothing at all, not even her pistol. Just an empty bag.
“Oh, Delilah,” she whispered, hoarse. Surely her friend had gotten away in time.
Another swallow, and Ceony finally lifted her eyes, taking in the shadows around her. The stale air felt cool against her sweating skin. Her eyes adjusted to the darkness, and she saw old, taupe-colored walls made of thin wooden boards, a flat ceiling, a wooden floor strewn with mouse droppings. A storage shed of sorts, perhaps. An empty one.
She turned around. Not empty.
Her quick-beating heart lodged into the base of her raw throat at the sight of Lira, still frozen, crouching with her hands pressed to her face, still locked into the agony into which Ceony had frozen her on the shores of Foulness Island. She looked like a phantom in the shadows of the shed. Ethereal, ghostly. Ceony shivered.
She circumvented Lira, giving her a wide berth, and stepped toward the door, limping on her left side. The floorboards creaked under her weight, setting off the skittering of tiny, clawed feet in the walls, or perhaps underfoot. Mice.
Ceony tested the doors. Locked, but closer inspection told her they hadn’t been locked from the outside. Someone—Ceony assumed Grath—had installed two locks on the inside. Both required a key. Ceony’s shoulders drooped.
Ceony reeled back toward the remnants of the mirror, which she could barely see this close to the door, where the only light filtered through gaps between the wooden panels of the walls.
Grath. Grath knew where she had gone. He wouldn’t trust her here with Lira. He’d come for her, one way or another. Come for her and kill her.
“Oh God, help me,” she whispered, clutching both hands to her chest. Her body shivered.
She tested the locks, pulling at them, trying to wedge a fingernail into the screws that held them. They didn’t budge.
If only she had paper! A burst spell would blow the decrepit wood apart, surely.
She chewed on her lip, skin growing colder by the minute. She pushed against the doors, the splintering wood creaking with the force. Pushing her fingers through one of the larger gaps, she gripped the board and pushed, pulled, pushed, but she didn’t have the strength to break it.
“Think, think,” she whispered. No paper. What else did she have?
She glanced toward Lira, hobbled toward her.
The woman’s skin felt ice cold, and Ceony half-expected her to reanimate and strike her. The thought of being trapped in a shed with a vengeful Lira made her shudder. Still, she prodded the woman’s belt, her pants, her shirt, searching for anything that might be useful. She found a German train ticket that hadn’t been stamped and some sort of long nail or stake hooked through a belt loop.
Ceony drew a small switchblade from Lira’s right boot, about three inches long. She took that, the nail, a shard of glass, and the broken mirror’s frame and returned to the door.
First she tried wedging the nail between lock and wood and pounding it in with the handle of the switchblade, but the lock didn’t come loose and the tools slipped in her clammy hands. She wiped her palms on her skirt and tried dislodging the lock with the blade itself, but without success.
Tucking the switchblade into her camisole, Ceony grabbed hold of the mirror frame, careful not to cut her fingers on the remaining shards of glass. She winced as she placed her weight on her left ankle. Then, holding the frame at an angle, she brought her right foot down on it twice before the frame snapped on its long end. Ceony wrenched it back and forth until she had a good, long piece of painted wood in her hands. Heaving with the effort, Ceony shoved the frame end into the gap between the wood panels and worked it back and forth, leaning all her weight into the lever.
The wood creaked, then split at the bottom.
A surge of hope rushed through Ceony, and she dropped the frame and grabbed the wood, ignoring the splinters that dug into her palms and fingers. She pushed it out until it broke again three feet up. Placing her weight on her left foot once again, Ceony kicked at the rest of the board until it loosened and she could bend it out.
The tight fit scraped her shoulder blades and hips, but Ceony pushed out of the storage shed. An identical building stood next to it, both of them situated on a dirt clearing near an unpaved trail. A gray, overcast sky hovered above, and Ceony smelled the distant scents of salt and fish: the coast.
She stumbled away from the sheds, hurrying up the three-foot-wide trail and disappearing into the trees. No memory in her arsenal matched this place. Where was she?
Grath. Her cheek throbbed, neck burned.
It didn’t matter where the mirror had taken her. She had to run before he found her.
She took off down the trail at a lope, limping on her left leg. She didn’t appear to be on a mountainside, thankfully, just in a patch of untamed woodland filled with mossy fir trees and weeds. After about a quarter mile, she stepped off the trail, scared that Grath would take that path first to find her.
She sprinted as best she could through knee-high foliage, eyes on the ground to avoid tree roots and dips. She ran a ways before stopping and ducking behind a yew tree, her lungs burning, her ankle throbbing. Blinking back tears, Ceony lowered herself to the ground and pulled off her shoe and stocking.
Her ankle certainly wasn’t broken, and had only swelled a small amount. A light sprain, perhaps, or just a twist. Nothing that wouldn’t cure itself, though she didn’t have the option of resting right now.
She pulled her stocking and shoe back on to keep the swelling down, then retrieved the mirror shard from the shed. She cradled it in her hands.
“Find me, Delilah,” she whispered. “Come on. You found me before, find me now.”
She stared at her own desperate reflection for a good minute, but nothing happened. She hadn’t expected anything different.
Ceony leaned back against the tree, trying to catch her breath. She didn’t even know where she was, so how would Delilah? If only Ceony were a Gaffer . . .
Memories of Grath’s threats filled her mind, and her heart sped with a renewed vigor. Her family. He’s going to hurt my family. Kill them. I have to get back!
Ceony cursed herself again and again as she stood, leaning against the tree for support. She had to find help. If she could only find some paper, perhaps she could send out a bird to search for Emery—
Emery’s going to kill me himself, she thought, hurrying through the scrubby woodland. I’m going to be expelled from my apprenticeship for sure.
But that didn’t matter, not right now. She had to find help. She had to warn her family. And more pressingly, she had to get away from Grath!
On she ran, more of a lopsided jog, through the woodland. The trees thinned and a few raindrops hit her nose, but the sky remained mostly dry. After a while, the earth slanted down a bit, and the trail turned east. She followed it for several miles until her muscles ached and her throat cried for water.
It ended at a wide, dirt road that went straight in both directions, no houses or signs of life along it save for a weathered sign carved in French.
French. So, she had left England. But where was she? France? Belgium? Certainly Grath wouldn’t have carried Lira clear to Canada!
Coughing, Ceony followed the road at little more than a walk. The thick clouds hid the sun, but she could tell the day had stretched into evening.
She looked over her shoulder, thinking she heard movement, but saw nothing.
She searched the sides of the road as she went, hoping to find some discarded trash made of paper, but the grounds were clean. She couldn’t even find a stick large enough to use as a cane. The ruts in the road were shallow, barely there. Wherever she had materialized, few people went.
She continued on, a cool breeze chilling her skin, her limp nearly a drag now. Her ankle had swelled more, but she couldn’t stop. She had to find someone. She had to get away. If only she could find a telegraph somewhere, but she didn’t see any wires. She didn’t even find any more signs, not that she could have read them anyway.
As the sun began to set, tinting the overcast clouds orange, she clutched the glass shard in her hands, murmuring Delilah’s name, Mg. Aviosky’s, Emery’s. No one heard her.
She followed the road until night settled too heavily for her to see, and the clouds hid the moon and stars. Panting, Ceony stepped off the road and back into the sparse trees. She sat between the roots of one, pulled her knees to her chest, and wept.