This was not to say that this version of Lily was not frightening. From time to time, Lily would blink and Katie would glimpse something else beneath the surface, something terrible. This Lily was not kind, not understanding, but vengeful . . . but Katie did not think it was revenge against her that Lily sought. She hoped not. She felt as though, at any moment, Lily might shed her skin and reveal something entirely other, a black and slumped shape that wore Lily as a mask.
“What kind of help?” she asked, but she was only partly listening. The other half of her mind was tuned back in to the cell, waiting for the click of a key in the lock, the sign that Row had come for them. She thought she would promise Lily anything, if only it would get her out of this place and back to Jonathan. Katie stared at Lily’s face, seeking clues, but she saw only a deadly sort of patience. And now she noticed something else: Lily was wearing a crown, a silver circle studded with blue jewels. Row’s crown! And Katie suddenly relaxed, because this seemed the most indisputable proof that this was a harmless dream. Row’s crown could not be here, on Lily’s head. Katie had buried the thing in the woods, and it would remain there forever, unable to harm anyone.
“I need to be here,” Lily said. “I need you to allow me to be here.”
Katie’s brow furrowed, but she nodded, almost in a trance, allowing Lily’s voice to drift over her. For a few moments she became confused, thought she was speaking not to Lily but to William Tear; then the world locked solidly back into place and she blinked stupidly as light flared above her head. She had spent hours waiting for the click of the lock, and she had missed it. Gavin and his four flunkies stood above them, all of them holding torches in one hand and knives in the other. Too many for Katie to take, even if she’d had her own knife.
“Get up,” Gavin ordered tonelessly. “He wants to see you.”
He bent down to take her arm, but Katie shook him off.
“Don’t touch me, traitor.”
“I’m no traitor. I’m helping to save this town.”
She gritted her teeth, wondering how he could be so blind, so stupid. Katie wasn’t sure of what the Town needed either, but she knew that whatever it might be, it would not come from Row, who only wanted all things for himself. But Gavin’s face was smug and certain. Katie longed to punch him; she clenched her hand into a fist, then froze, puzzled, as her hand unclenched of its own volition. Something shifted, restless, inside her mind, and then was still.
Did I dream? Katie wondered. Did I dream all of that?
“Come on,” Gavin said. “Follow Lear.”
Katie did, wondering why they didn’t bind her hands. There had been a dream, she remembered now, but she was damned if she could remember what it had been. As she tromped up the staircase—a long staircase, many more stairs than any similar structure she had ever seen in the Town—she felt a thud as something heavy bounced off her breastbone. Tear’s sapphire; of course, still tucked beneath her shirt. Jonathan had given it to her, during that long, dreamlike interlude in the dark. Katie wondered whether she was dreaming now. If only she could wake up in her own narrow bed, her book next to her on the bedside table and Mum in the next room. If only that were how this ended.
She glanced at Jonathan and found him pale, but composed. The torchlight flickered and for a moment, every line of his cheekbones was limned in grey, his face a skull. Katie nearly gasped, but remained quiet as she felt his hand twine with hers in the dark.
“We tried, Katie,” he whispered, the words nearly inaudible. “We did our best.”
She turned to stare at him, but Jonathan was looking straight ahead, focused on the future, hardly noticing that his words had stabbed her in the heart, put her right back in the clearing, fifteen years old, that day when she and Jonathan had been the only ones left behind. If only she could go back there! There was so much they could have done differently, starting with Row. Katie could have strangled him in the woods, buried his body with no one to know.
Tear wouldn’t have wanted that.
Tear is dead. Why should he bind us any longer?
There was no answer, only that sense of movement, deep in her mind, a slither of thoughts that were not her own. For a moment the tangle loosened, and a single thought came through
—spades—
and then it was gone.
They reached the top and found themselves in a long, cramped hallway, lit by torches. Katie glanced behind them but saw only the beginning of the staircase, a wide mouth that yawned downward into darkness.
How many people? Katie wondered suddenly. Row didn’t build that dungeon for Jonathan and me. Christ, how many people has he kept down there?
As they neared the end of the hallway, a long, narrow shadow fell through the doorway and Katie tensed, preparing to go for Alain’s knife. He had always been the weakest fighter among them. Even though Gavin would likely knife her in seconds, perhaps she would have the time to put a blade through Row’s heart. It would be worth dying herself.
But it wasn’t Row. Katie had been deceived by the shadow. The form that came through the doorway was a little boy, less than four feet tall, but Katie had to squint at him for a long moment before she recognized Yusuf Mansour.