“And what will they do when they catch you?”
“Last time it was poison. I would guess something faster.”
He takes one of my hands, flips it palm up. “What happened here?”
I glance down at the new skin, puzzled. “Rope. I slid when I was running away and—”
“Rope?” Beckett shuts his eyes, then his hand closes over mine. “Rope! You have got to be kidding me. Come on. Quick!”
He yanks me across the loose rocks, back to the grasses, where he gets his pack out from under Jillian’s head and dumps it out. Jillian groans a little, trying to turn inside the blanket while Beckett digs. I see two of the little packages of food they’ve been eating, an assortment of things I don’t recognize, and then Beckett has a shiny, cone-shaped metal case and bundle of flat, thin ropes. When he shakes the ropes loose, they make a kind of net.
“We’re going up,” he says, pointing to the hole in the ceiling, eight and a half meters above us.
I have a sudden vision of Nita’s story, the one with wings on heads. Beckett is talking fast.
“I’m going to shoot the rope through the hole and climb up, and while I’m doing that you’re going to get Jill in the harness.” He throws me the net of ropes, and I catch it. “Her arms and legs go through here, and you hook it like this … ” He shows me a small metal clamp, and where it attaches. “Then I’m going to bring the rope up and shoot it back down here, you’re going to attach the harness, turn the grip loose, and I’ll retract the rope and haul Jill up. Then I’m going to shoot it back and you’ll get in the harness and do the same thing. Got it? You take the—”
“You only have to tell me once,” I say.
He almost smiles. “Right.” He does something with the metal cone, there’s a whoosh, and suddenly the top of the cone is just gone, a thin rope flying up and up and out of the hole in the ceiling. I realize that I don’t have time to be startled. I kneel down and start wrestling Jill into the harness. Beckett tugs and the rope is firm, taut, like it’s been tied, though I can’t imagine to what. It looks too flimsy to be of any use.
“Do you Know what’s up there?” he asks. He’s flinging belongings back into his pack, snatching my wet clothes from the rocks.
“I think a barren plain. But we can’t be far from the mountains.”
“Anything else?”
“No idea.”
He gets his pack on, a covering on each hand, grabs the rope, and before he goes, he pauses and says, “That was my fault back there. My mistake, and I’m sorry, okay?”
He’s talking about kissing me. And he regrets it. Why shouldn’t he? I look at the face I dreamed, and realize I’ve made a decision without making it. They can’t have Beckett. I won’t let them. “How close are they?” I ask.
“Maybe four minutes. Go fast.”
He climbs while I finish working Jillian into the ropes. I think I might have her arms where her legs go, but it feels secure. I get her pack while Beckett pulls himself over the edge of the hole in the ceiling, and in a moment the rope zips upward, fast. I drag Jillian by the harness, and the silver end of the rope comes down, spreading into three prongs that drive into the ground and hold there, a tiny green light blinking on top, like when Beckett was mending his bones. Jillian’s eyes open and close, and I look in my mind and watch Beckett attach the metal clamps, to make sure I do it right.
Jillian mumbles, “Where are we going?”
“Flying,” I say. I stuff her pack into the harness with her, and when I glance across the cavern, I can see the opposite passage, the one Beckett mentioned, because now it is lit by the pale yellow light of biofuel. They’re coming. I go to “turn the grip loose” like Beckett said, only I don’t see how. And he didn’t say how. It’s just smooth metal, winking with unnatural light.
“Jillian,” I whisper. “Jillian! How do you make it let go?”
Jillian opens her blue eyes, sees the hanging rope, and then her lids fall closed again. I hear a distant echo of voices, this time from the cartage way.
“Jillian,” I say, shaking her a little, “tell me how to make it let go!”
“Electromagnetic,” she replies, which is the least helpful thing I’ve ever heard her say. And that’s saying quite a bit. Beckett’s head is hanging down through the hole, and he’s beckoning, but I can’t call out without alerting the coming Council. I run my hands all over the metal, desperate, and for no reason I can name, the green light … vanishes. Like someone blew it out. I pull, and the grip releases.
I wave at Beckett and Jillian lifts to the air, the light jar I’ve crammed into her pack glowing through the cloth. She looks like a rising moon. Lantern light wavers on either side of me, from both passages, as I watch Jillian’s ascent, my pack on my shoulder, my book inside it. I shift my feet. She’s almost to the hole in the ceiling, and we are almost out of time.
I watch Beckett’s hands pull Jillian up and over the edge, see the empty hole with the empty red sky, and even though I am trapped at the bottom, I feel relieved. That they’re safe. That I can’t give them to the Council. Even for my parents. It’s a red dark without the light jar, and a shadow moves in the opposite passage. I close my eyes. I Know I’m in trouble. I have nothing. No bargain. No Forgetting. No time.
But I can make a plan.
So I get back into the city for the Changing of the Seasons, make my very public appearance and hope it’s enough for Thorne Councilman to not make an example of my parents. Then I elude basically everyone Underneath, long enough to get back into that room in the Archives, discover how to Forget, and heal the Knowing before Judgment. Or before the Council kills me first.
It’s a terrible plan. But I think I’m going to try. At least I won’t be giving the Council that killed my brother the satisfaction of killing me today. And they don’t get Beckett. The Council can deal with Earth on their own. Earth doesn’t actually seem all that scary right now.
Not nearly as scary as they are.
I look up at the empty hole, and I can hear my own pulse in my ears. The echo of conversation from the cartage way. It’s still three days until the Changing of the Seasons. I won’t be able to hide that long. Not in the city. I think I need to go to Annis. Nita’s mother. To the Outside.
I think I don’t have a way out of this cave.