I can’t move. Death stares down at me.
She turns, looks somewhere to her left. “Lower the sides of the husk. I want to get a good look at her.”
A buzz, then a soft clacking sound. All four sides of the coffin slide down and away. On my left, Matilda, and just past her, a closed golden coffin—it’s been polished until the carvings gleam with a lifelike vibrance. On my right, a waist-high, curved, red metal wall with that strange symbol engraved on it in black.
I’m in the Observatory.
Farther down on my right, two wrinkled Grownups—wearing the same metal-and-mask array as Matilda—are standing on the pedestal platform. One is tall and thin. The other is the shortest I have seen yet; by height alone, I know it is the Grownup version of Gaston.
I look past my bound feet, knowing what I will see—the big, black X, shackles and crown dangling. Behind the X, the mural of an old man, a younger man driving a knife through his chest.
Everything is clean. All the dust is gone.
Where is O’Malley? Did he escape? I hope Barkah and Lahfah got away.
Somewhere behind me, I hear a voice I know all too well.
“You have what you wanted,” Aramovsky says. “Now give me what I need.”
My body surges, thrums with sudden, blind hope.
“Aramovsky, kill her! Get me out of here!”
I thrash at my restraints with newfound strength. He has to strike fast…how many circle-stars did he bring with him? He…
Wait…what did he say?
Matilda continues to stare down at me. I hear footsteps, then I see him, Aramovsky, standing beside her, my spear in his hand.
He is wearing red robes, just like those of the torturers carved into the Observatory walls.
My body starts to shake. I struggle to breathe. Why is he standing with her? Why isn’t he fighting her?
Matilda reaches up a wrinkled, old arm and rests her hand on Aramovsky’s red-robed shoulder.
“You’re lucky, boy,” she says. “You lured my shell away from the others, but she was almost killed by that disgusting vermin army.”
I can’t believe what I’m hearing. Bello didn’t just give Aramovsky the secret of the symbols so he could take over as leader—she told him where to send me.
He gave me up to Matilda.
“We didn’t know there were so many of them,” he says. “If you had grabbed her at the gate, like you were supposed to, she wouldn’t have been at risk.” He tilts his head toward me. “Besides—she looks fine.”
Matilda adjusts her mask, as if the fit bothers her.
“She looks filthy. But we did run late. Sometimes old bodies do not react as quickly as one would like. At any rate, a deal is a deal.” She looks off to her left. “Bring them.”
I hear heavy footsteps approaching. I crane my head up to see—it’s Coyotl, young and strong and smiling, carrying a large, carved box.
I feel heavier, like I’m sinking into this coffin, like I’m drowning in darkness. Coyotl has been overwritten—same as Bello, same as Beckett. Coyotl walks and talks and looks like my friend, the one who taught me how to sharpen the spear, but my friend is gone forever.
He sets the box down on my thighs.
“See, Matilda?” he says. “I told you she was in good shape.”
A whining tone to his voice. He is desperate to please her, but Matilda is far from pleased.
“Your body has far less damage, Uriah,” she says to him. “Look at her. She hasn’t fixed anything. Some of those scars are never going to come out.”
Coyotl shrugs. “You might have to hose her down first. All that camouflage on her face…somehow she fooled herself into thinking she’s a knight.”
A knight? Is that what the circle-stars are really called?
“The folly of youth,” Matilda says. “Such beauty, yet she doesn’t care. I was like that once. I won’t make that same mistake again. I’ll treasure my youth. This time, I’ll savor every last moment of it.”
Coyotl reaches into the box, pulls something out, holds it up for Aramovsky to see—it’s a silver bracelet. The ceiling lights play off the white stone, gleam against the long metal point.
“Twenty of them,” Coyotl says.
Aramovsky slowly reaches out a trembling hand, takes the bracelet.
“Twenty,” he says. “With these and our war machines, we’ll slaughter the Springers. How do I use it?”
Matilda pulls Aramovsky closer to her. I see his lip curl slightly, involuntarily.
“Remember our deal,” she says, her words syrupy sweet. “When you attack, you will not use people on the list I gave you. Their creators are waiting—those shells must not be risked.”
He hasn’t attacked yet. There’s still time.