I find a handgun, a lightweight polymer throwing knife, a small brushed-steel orb that I’m hoping is a tiny bomb and not, for example, a pocket radio. Most of the weapons are too huge to be used by a single person. Others look too complicated. I study the handgun in the light from my flashlight. Figure out how to click out the cartridge. Feel brilliant for a second. The gun’s loaded.
Will comes over with more ammunition. I show him what I found. He holds up a taser.
“You can have it if you want,” he says, and I actually melt a little, because what’s more adorable than someone offering you a taser before going into battle?
I grab it. Give him a half smile. We join the others.
The hall is a covered in chunks of glass now, like the ceiling rained ice. Lilly and Jules have a small arsenal of weapons lying in a heap by the door. We sort through them, tossing aside the ones that are too big or heavy, slinging the rest onto our backs, attaching them to belts, clutching them in our hands.
I keep thinking someone might hear us. Maybe trackers, or Dorf in his camel trench coat and neat little beard, and this whole desperate operation will be over before we even start. But no one comes. The palace feels dead around us. Hollow. Waiting.
We hurry out, leaving Rabbit Gallery in ruins behind us.
I’m almost giddy heading back to the rose room. We’re not talking. We don’t need to. I don’t know what we’re walking into, what’s going to happen, but somehow everything—paintings, warnings, Perdu, Hayden, that book—is fading away. I have something new to focus on. Something awful and simple and better. This must be like the parade-and-bugles part of war, the run-up when everything’s still bright waving flags and heroism. You don’t think about the bad things. You focus on nebulous notions of victory and let that float you. A part of me knows it won’t last. But I’ll take it while it does. I’d rather be pumped than terrified.
As soon as we’re back, the writing desk barring the doors, everyone starts talking at once. It’s like we were holding our breath.
“I don’t even know what this does,” Lilly says, picking up pretty much everything she carried and rattling it around.
Jules starts lining up explosives on the embroidered seat of a chair, eyeing them mistrustfully.
I sit down cross-legged on the floor and spread a snowy white pillowcase in front of me.
“You got a plan now, Nukey?” Hayden asks, and he’s being a jerk, but the thing is, I do have a plan. At least, part of one.
“Yep!” I jump up, start rummaging around inside the desk. Find some ink, still liquid, and a long curved quill. I start scribbling a hypothetical floor plan of the hall of mirrors onto the pillowcase, guiding the quill’s nub as smoothly as I can across the cloth. The others gather around.
“They obviously don’t know where we are,” I say, and the nub snags, splattering ink. “Which means they probably don’t know how many of us are left. And they’re going to try to trick us. That’s a given. So we’re going to trick them back.” I look up at their faces. “We’re going to need a volunteer.”
We’ve gone over the plan four times. We’ve gone over our weapons, discussed how we’re going to use them. When. We’re ready to go. But we’re waiting, hanging back. It’s like being at the top of the highest drop of a rickety, sure-to-collapse roller coaster, and you—you, in the wagon—get to decide when to take the plunge, freak out, die. No one’s given the go-ahead yet.
Hayden’s telling us about his life in Connecticut, mumbling in circles about politics and how he hates everyone at his college, how they’re all clueless, talentless, they don’t understand him. He keeps circling back to that point in the chateau’s dining room when he took the pills and everything derailed. The weird thing is, he sounds almost excited about it. Like it was a cool thing we all ended up down here and are being chased by crazies. Like that totally made his day. No one shuts him up. No one’s really listening. We’re wired for what’s ahead.
“Your turn, Anouk,” Jules says when Hayden trails off, starts rubbing away at his foot again. “Tell us your story.”
He’s not expecting an answer. He’s expecting snark, waiting for me to tell him to shut up, and I almost do, just out of habit. But I change my mind. What difference does it make if somebody knows? What difference does it make if everyone knows? Maybe this is it. Maybe in forty minutes I’ll be gone. Wiped off the face of the earth.
“What d’you want to know?” I say.
“Whoa, really?” Jules sits up. “Everything! Why do you hate people? Why did you have to forge your parents’ signatures? Why are you angry all the time?”
“Jules, don’t,” Lilly says, but I wave it off.
“No, it’s okay. I’ll tell you. I’ll have to maim all of you afterward so you can’t tell anyone my secrets, but you’re okay with that, right?”
“Oh, definitely,” Jules says.