We need a rest. I tell everyone to sit in the statue’s shade.
My legs tremble. They moved past simple pain three or four levels back. Now they are numb. I can only imagine how badly they will ache tomorrow. O’Malley, Spingate and I are drained to the point I’m not sure we can make it the last five levels. Visca and Bishop look tired, but can clearly keep going. Where does their strength and endurance come from?
Spingate and I rest with our backs against the base of the statue. O’Malley lies flat on his stomach. Aramovsky, somehow, is still moving, looking at carvings with wonder. Bishop and Visca sit on the steps, staring out across the city. They don’t want to see any more of the horrors.
These top layers are just as thick as those on the bottom—a hundred steps each—but are increasingly smaller in width. It would have taken us hours to walk all the way around the base. We could walk around the twenty-fifth layer’s thin plateau in only a couple of minutes.
Everyone is still except for Aramovsky. He’s just as exhausted as I am, I’m sure of it, but you’d never know by his expression. Every new image makes his face blaze with reverence. He’s running his hands over a carving that shows two red-robed people—a man and a woman—using stone blades to scrape the skin off a little girl. The child’s agonized, terrified face is so real I can almost hear her screams.
For a moment I think, I shouldn’t have brought him. But we probably can’t get inside without him. I had no choice.
I notice that Spingate is watching him. She’s getting angry. She stands, walks over to him.
“You like that?” she says.
I hear the threat in her voice. Aramovsky doesn’t. He answers without turning around.
“It’s beautiful. This had to be carved by hand. And how did the artists make the rock different colors?”
“Artists,” Spin says, spitting the word out like it’s made of poison. “There’s something wrong with you, Aramovsky. I always knew there was, but this proves it.”
He turns to face her. If he didn’t hear her tone, he can see her body language—fists clenched at her sides, shoulders forward. I’m behind her, I can’t see her eyes, but I know they are narrowed to slits.
“There’s nothing wrong with me,” he says. “I don’t know why you’d say that.”
She points at the image of the girl, at the girl’s forehead. “That’s a tooth-girl being butchered. Is that why you like it? Or because the two people skinning her are double-rings, like you?”
I glance at the forehead symbols of the carved people, see that she’s right.
Spingate takes a step toward him. I see Bishop and Visca rise, watching carefully.
O’Malley lifts up on one elbow.
“Give it a rest, Spin,” he says. “Aramovsky didn’t make this place.”
She takes another step closer. Aramovsky takes a step away, unsure of what’s happening. A second step away puts his back up against the very carving he so admires.
Spingate closes the distance.
I realize all at once that she’s going to hit him. He could crush her if he wanted to, but that doesn’t matter—a fight could easily result in someone tumbling down the steps or, worse, rolling off the edge to the hard stone below.
I scramble to my feet and run to them.
“Spin, take it easy,” I say. “Like O’Malley said, Aramovsky had nothing to do with making these carvings.”
She whirls, fists clenched, eyes blazing with hatred. She hoped this building might bring answers, but it is nothing more than a temple of nightmares.
“He’ll do the same to us,” she says. “Mark my words, Em, Aramovsky will…”
She glances above me as her voice trails off. Then she looks at me again. The expression on her face, it’s like a dagger through my heart—she’s terrified.
I reach out for her. She flinches. I let my hand drop to my side.
“Spin, what’s wrong? You don’t think I’d let Aramovsky do something to you, do you? I wouldn’t let anyone hurt you.”
Aramovsky starts to laugh. The deep sound makes my skin crawl. He slowly claps his hands, absolutely delighted.
“Some things you let happen, Em,” he says. “Some things you can’t stop, because they are your destiny.”
He points up at the statue.
I turn and look up, raising a hand to block the sun.
And then I see why Spingate is so afraid.
There are only a few vines hanging from the statue’s head. I can see the face—a face that is unmistakable.
Because it is mine.
I stare until my eyes water.
It’s me. Me.
No, it’s Matilda, or it would be if she took over my body. All the horror that decorates this monstrosity of a building, all the promises of death and carnage and hearts ripped from chests and tossed down steep stone steps…the statue means all of this was her doing.
Being the leader wasn’t enough for Matilda.
She wanted to be worshipped.