“Please.” There was really no fair way to choose, so I might as well not pretend to be impartial.
No sooner had I spoken than Gloria let out an earsplitting horror-movie scream. The three of us not occupied in holding the crank flew to the edge of the well and peered down. There was not a hint of light; either Gloria had switched off the lighter or she had disappeared into a darkness that was impenetrable by ordinary means.
The screams didn’t stop. Tjuan started to reverse direction, clenching his jaw, but then Claybriar called out hoarsely from below, just loud enough to be heard over Gloria’s screams.
“Wait!” he said. Then after a moment, “Down!”
Tjuan glanced at me—oh right, I was supposed to be in charge. I nodded, a downward stab of my finger the best I could do at communication. Tjuan lowered the platform some more, and after a moment the screams faded to sobbing gasps. I heard Claybriar murmuring quietly, a soothing cadence, but I couldn’t make out the words.
“Get us out of here,” Gloria called up with surprising firmness.
Tjuan wasted no time, arms and back straining as he turned the crank, lifting them both up into the light. Gloria and Claybriar were clinging to each other, she straddling his lap in a way she would most likely have found unseemly under other circumstances. To make matters even more awkward, enough of Claybriar’s essence had drained out of him that his facade was history, and I was looking at six and a half feet of faun.
Foxfeather’s rendition of him hadn’t been half-bad, actually, other than the vapid expression. He had crescent-shaped horns and powerful shaggy legs that bent the wrong way. His bare torso was well worth staring at, and his face looked almost like a caricature of the human version. But it was his eyes that took me aback when they locked onto mine. They were exactly the same. Why this made my scalp crawl, I don’t know.
“You came,” he said.
“I did.”
Claybriar graciously accepted Gloria’s help getting out of the well, though he was probably three times her weight. He approached me warily, his hooves soundless on the sand, as though I might bolt. “My sister,” he said to me. “My sister’s down there.”
“She’s the missing girl you were talking about?” I felt a tightening inside me that was at least two parts fear as he came closer. Something must have shown in my face, because Caryl squeezed my hand. Everyone was watching us.
“The viscount,” Claybriar said, stopping in front of me. “He came to our glade, spoke to us.” His ear twitched. “We weren’t the first commoners he’d talked to. Something about needing volunteers for a rebellion. I got a bad feeling, so I told her not to go, but the minute I fell asleep, she slipped away.”
I couldn’t hurt him any worse, so I reached my hand out to him. When he touched it, his eyes took on a sharp focus.
“It’s you,” he said, in the same wondering way Inaya had. But to me, his hand just felt like a hand, albeit slightly fuzzy on the back.
“I’m your Echo,” I said.
“I knew it as soon as you told me about your fall.” Suddenly his words seemed to come fluently, lacking his former awkwardness. “It was obvious I had an Echo—I could do math, plan events, learn languages—they even let me assist at court. Then a year ago I just lost it. Lost everything. For months. I thought you’d died.”
“I’m so sorry,” I said. “But why didn’t you just tell me the minute you knew?”
“You said you were friends with the viscount and his Echo. For all I knew you were part of their plans. I’m sorry. I should never have thought that.”
“All righty!” Gloria distracted us by saying. Her voice was sweet and forced, like icing from a decorator’s tube. “Back down I go!”
I pulled away from Claybriar. “Wait,” I said to her. “What happened down there?”
“Well, honey, I had to get off the platform so Mr. Claybriar could get on. I don’t have to tell you what that felt like; you’ve touched a Gate yourself.” Was it the light, or was she a little pale?
“Are you sure you want to go back?”
“Who else is gonna do it?” she said. “Tjuan can barely lift the thing as it is.”
“You are not wrong,” Tjuan said, squeezing his own shoulder with a grimace.
“I’ll get your sister next, sweetheart,” she said to Claybriar with a wink. Claybriar gave her a lopsided smile that didn’t come anywhere near his eyes. I was having a hard time looking at him.
Tjuan gave Gloria a lift back into the well, helping her -settle onto the platform again. He gave the crank several turns, lower-ing Gloria into the shaft, then suddenly stopped. “Oh, shit,” he said calmly.
“What is it?”
He was staring behind us, so we all turned to see what he was seeing.
“Oh, shit,” I concurred.
47