“There isn’t time.” Jackaby’s words were heavy. “Miss Rook,” he said, “you should go. Be with Charlie. Bring them back. I will hold the threshold as long as I can, but I cannot leave now. The war has begun, and we are already losing it.”
“You’re losing it if you think I’m going to let you go marching into that mess alone! With all due respect, sir, you can’t handle a hot breakfast without me—do you really intend to save the world on your own?”
“Miss Rook.” He looked pained.
“Maybe Charlie is already on his way!” I said, stepping over the rubble toward the demolished wall to get a peek toward the street.
“Charlie doesn’t even know where we’ve gone,” Jackaby said. “None of them do. Pavel never told us before we left. He only showed us the way in. Even if they did heed our call, they would still be hours away on Augur Lane.”
“Charlie is resourceful. He’s cleverer than you give him credit for, sir. Maybe he worked out where we are.” I reached the broken wall and looked out, the sun hot on my face.
I gazed at an empty lane. There was no Charlie. There was no Hudson or Nudd or even Douglas. There were no reinforcements. We were staggeringly, achingly alone against the end of the world.
“We’re it,” Jackaby said behind me.
I nodded. My throat felt dry.
“Virgule may come through,” Jackaby said. “He may have reached Lord Arawn by now, and there’s a chance the Fair King might actually take the threat seriously for once.”
“Yes,” I said. “Yes, I suppose that’s true.” I crossed back to Jackaby. “What’s the plan?”
The building shook—the quakes weren’t really stopping at all now, just ebbing and surging in intensity. A massive section of the back wall crumbled, rocks cascading and gonging off a toppled pipe organ in discordant tones. The enormous cleft running through the middle of the church had gotten larger.
“We stop the machine to protect the whole world—that’s our priority. Next, we stall that army, as long as we can. They’re preparing for battle, and we’ve just unlocked the gate for them. If we can delay the army, even for a minute, it gives Charlie more time to arrive, gives New Fiddleham a chance.”
“All right,” I said. “Let’s save the worlds.”
After examining the rends from our side, we determined that our best bet was not to drop straight through the biggest gap, but to slip through a small rip in the corner of the church. It deposited us sideways into an unoccupied space at the far end of Hafgan’s Hold. Tall weeds and creeping vines had taken over in the centuries since Hafgan had last held power, and we crouched low among these as we hurried to take cover against the nearest wall.
The keep was ahead of us, troops lined up in front of it. The enormous tower had felt the effects of the quake as well. I stared at it. Like the church, the keep had been rocked and ruined—but unlike the church, the tower was held together by forces stronger than bricks and mortar. The base of the structure still stood intact, and the dome high atop the tower remained where it had been when we left it. In between, however, the building was effectively gone. Every floor was laid bare, the Dire King’s device naked to the elements. Cracked stones orbited the building weightlessly, the remnants of the ruined tower spinning aimlessly around the massive framework of the machine.
I couldn’t see the Dire King from this angle, but now and then the troops would respond to whatever he was saying with a roar of malicious excitement. The frenzy was building.
“Well, we’ve got excellent timing,” Jackaby whispered. “They seem busy getting excited about the prospect of murdering humans with abandon. With a little luck, we can turn that distraction to our advantage.”
“The evil warlord appears to be much better at pep talks than you are, sir.”
“I have never subscribed to pep,” Jackaby admitted. “Do try not to die.”
We crept closer, peering around the corner of the wall. We were a stone’s throw from the keep and the edge of the crowd. My foot struck something hard and I glanced down. The black blade lay at my feet.
“Sir!” I had seen Morwen’s sword flipping away wildly when she fell, but I had not seen where it landed. “Look!”
“Who’s back there?” shouted a voice from the other side of the wall we were using as cover. I froze.
Muffled footsteps began to tromp around the building. I snatched up the black blade and held it in front of me.
“You need to hide!” Jackaby whispered.
More footsteps joined the first. “Over this way!” the voice snarled.
Jackaby’s eyes flashed. He rummaged in his pockets and pulled out a little pill. It looked like the tablet that had made the ogre’s teeth grow back on the castle wall. That had worked so well the last time.
“They can’t kill me,” Jackaby whispered. “They’re not allowed. But you . . .” The footsteps had nearly reached us. “Dentimorphic Engorgement. Might tickle,” he said. And then he stuffed the pill in my mouth.
“Mmph! Sir, what on earth ar—ooomph!”
There was a sickening popping sound. I felt like someone had attached a weight to the bottom of my chin. My jaw immediately ached. Out of the bottom of my eyes I could see something pearly and realized I was looking at my own teeth.
“Whurph?” I managed. Jackaby ruffled my hair up just before a pair of trolls turned the corner.
“Fine!” Jackaby threw his hands up in the air, looking at me. “You caught me!”
“Good work,” the first troll said, then looked me in the eyes. He jabbed a spear at me and leaned in to his comrade. “What’s she?”
A strand of my ruffled hair drifted across my eyes. I blinked. “Uhm.”
“She is the abominable brigand who just captured me,” Jackaby declared dramatically.
“Er—yeff,” I said through my enormous teeth. “Yeff, thaffs whu happeghed.”
The trolls looked skeptical. “Yeah, but what are you?”
“I—uhm,” I said.
“That’s really quite offensive,” Jackaby interjected. “Be careful. You’ll make her mad. You really don’t want to see her in her wrathful demon form. I’ve only just calmed her down as it is.”
“I think she’s one of them oni,” the second troll whispered to the first. “You ever been to the Eastern Annwyn?”
The first shook his head, then turned back to us. “Your prisoner. What you think?” he said to me. “We bring him to the Dire King?”
My eyes widened. “Oh—I don’ fthing thath a good idea. He’f righ in the miggle of hith thpeech to the troopth, and—”
“Obviously she’s going to take me to the king,” Jackaby interrupted. He nodded to me slyly.
“Yeth,” I said. “You can go. I have thith trethpather under control.”
The first troll’s eyes narrowed. “We’ll just come with you,” he decided. “To be sure.”
“Thath great,” I said. “Good. Okay. Let’th go thee the Dire King. Right now. Together.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
We marched through the center of the phalanx. Over the hubbub all around me and the pounding of my own heartbeat in my ears, I could catch snippets of the Dire King’s voice.
“What was that?” Jackaby asked, cocking his head to the side. “What did he just say?”
“Unleashing glorious chaos on earth,” grunted the troll on our right.
“No, before that.”