The Keep of Ages (The Vault of Dreamers #3)

“I see you,” Lavinia says, her voice staticky. “The dragon’s shifting a bit. Otherwise, nothing’s changed by the keep.”

I peer inside the Lost and Found, seeing only darkness, and my heart dips. I don’t want Dubbs overhearing if I get inside there and something bad happens.

“I’ll call you later when I know something,” I say.

“Dubbs and I are coming to the park,” Lavinia says.

“No, don’t,” I say, alarmed. “You can’t help. You have to keep Dubbs safe.”

“Then I’m calling the police,” Lavinia says.

“No!” I say. “We’ve got this under control. I mean it. Just let me find my parents. I’m close, I just know it.”

A burst of static comes over the phone. “Promise you’ll keep us informed,” she says. “If you’re not out of there in an hour, I’m making the call.”

“I will be. Just take care of Dubbs,” I say, and disconnect.

Seriously, the last thing I need is my sister here with Lavinia. I’m not calling them again until we’re all safely out of here. I test the handle on the Lost and Found, but it’s locked, with no code box. I’m getting good at shattering glass with my flashlight. Next, I wrap my sleeve over my hand, reach in to find the inside knob, and carefully unlock the door.

I push it open. My ballet flats brush over broken glass as I enter, and I’m careful to step wide.

“Ma?” I call.

The place smells of rubbish and rain, but also of something sharper, a hint of chemicals. I glance up to see a sagging ceiling, and a cricket chirps. Knowing this place is devoid of working security cameras, I take a chance with my flashlight and cast the beam around. A moldy mural of a tree with cheery woodland animals stands behind a short table shaped like a ladybug. An inner door along the back wall is closed. I step softly over and try the knob. This one is locked, too, and the door has no window. I press my ear to the door and hear a faint hum. I have to get in there.

I throw my shoulder against the door. It holds, but it creaks enough to give me hope. A splintered seam has appeared near the hinge side. I back up a couple paces and rush at it again, barreling into the wood with all my might. The door bursts inward, its hinges busted, and I stagger into the next room.

Two sleep shells are parked along the far wall with pale blue lights illuminating their curved glass lids. A sourness laces the air, and even as I hurry close, I’m thinking, Please, no. Don’t let them be dead. I stare anxiously into the first one and my heart stops.

It’s Ma. Her pale profile is a motionless mask.

As I push open the lid, the ghastly sourness is even stronger.

“Ma,” I say, leaning close to hug her.

She’s warm. That’s the first miracle. Her cheeks and arms are warm to my touch. I nearly start to cry. Her eyes are closed, but she’s breathing. That’s the next miracle. She’s breathing. She’s alive! My heart zigzags with joy.

Rapidly, I check her over. She has an IV line going into her hand, but the pouch of fluids above her has gone dry. No catheter is coming out of her, and no pads are on her temples. She’s still in street clothes, a summer dress and sandals, with no restraints on her, as if she were dumped there carelessly with no concern for her comfort or fear of her resistance. I stare again at her wan features, her dry lips. Has she been left like this for six days? Seven now?

How can she still be alive?

“Ma!” I say again, gripping her shoulders. She doesn’t respond. I look over at the next sleep shell, where Larry’s burly form gleams in the blue glow. I shove up his lid, and he’s in the same condition as Ma: unresponsive but breathing. They’re both alive. But sour, so sour, like they’re spoiling.

I check for poop but don’t see any. There’s some dried urine on Larry’s pants, maybe, but the odor is different, more like raw garlic. People can’t decay when they’re still alive. Can they?

I have to get them out of here. I hurry back to Ma and try holding up her eyelid and shining my light inside. Her pupil contracts slightly, but she doesn’t respond otherwise.

“What has he done to you?” I whisper, as cold anger replaces my first relief.

Whatever sick way he’s managed it, Berg has drugged my parents into a long-term sleep. I have to believe it’s not something worse.

I try calling Linus first, but he doesn’t answer. He must be underground. Burnham doesn’t answer, either.

How am I going to get them out of here? Ma probably outweighs me by fifty pounds. Even if I could drag her out of here, I’d still need help with Larry.

“Ma,” I say again, giving her another shake.

Her head lolls limply on her neck. I can’t think why Berg would leave her and Larry here like this, in this dark hole. Why didn’t he put them down in the vault with the rest of the dreamers where they could at least be watched over by the doctors? His cruelty shouldn’t astound me anymore, but it does.

Arself, I say sharply in my head. Where are you? We need help.

We told you. We need to connect again. We can’t do anything like this.

I need Linus and Burnham, I say. Do you know where they are?

We would if we were connected.

I gnash my teeth in frustration. Take a guess, I say.

Burnham is probably still in the keep. Linus was following Berg, who was heading down to Negative One. This is nothing more than I know myself, I say. Can’t you help me at all?

We can optimize your path to VIP Portal Number Twenty-two, factoring in the darkness to avoid detection.

Is that where Berg went?

Yes. Then we want to connect to the dreamers again.

I assume she means getting back on a computer, like we did in the keep when she took over my fingers and raced my eyeballs over the screens. I have no desire to put her in charge again.

Still, I can’t exactly lie to Arself with a false promise.

“We’ll see,” I say aloud. “Okay? That’s the best I can do. We’ll see.”

Deep silence widens for a moment in the back of my brain. Then I feel a tingle in my right palm. I lift my hand, and as I watch, a faint, glowing, gold line appears in the soft skin of my hand. The light has a slight heft to it, like a string, and as I give a slight tug, the line of light extends out of my hand to the floor in front of my feet and travels forward, out the door and around the corner.

I know the string of light can’t truly exist, but that doesn’t matter. Arself has created it in my mind and superimposed it onto my palm so that it leads into the landscape of Grisly.

I take another look at my parents. They’re still breathing, still sleeping. They have no idea I’ve found them, and somehow that twists me up.

If I leave them, will I see them again? I ask.

We don’t know the future.

It’s up to me. I’m the only one who can decide. With an ache of fear, I close Larry’s lid again, and then my mother’s.

“I’ll be back,” I promise.

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