"The Marcellans gave us her Blue Water-me and many others. They wanted us to be their secret fighting force." The anger left her as quickly as it came. "This is what we became."
"Not me," Nophel said. "Not me."
"Because you're her son?"
He turned and started walking away from Alexia. Change back, he thought. Take me back, I can't be like this… His walk turned into a run, and when he glanced back, Alexia had vanished. His was a lonely, endless gray street in a gray city, and for a moment, until he rounded a corner and saw the blur of movement returning, he thought he might be there forever.
He cried out in joy as the world came to life around him, fading in from some distance until the people were close enough to touch. He did so, startling one woman into a scream, rushing farther until the colors were all there again, the smells and sounds and sights of the city he both loved and hated. As he ran as fast as he could toward Hanharan Heights, all that was left to return was him.
Gorham sent Devin and Bethy back to Course. Peer saw him whispering to them before they left. Maybe they'd simply come this far as a guard, but she thought not. Gorham was planning things moment by moment, and now he had something else for them to do.
"Where are they going?" she asked.
"Spreading the word. Come on." He led the way down into the shadows. Malia descended through the hatch next, and Rufus and Peer followed. It was a strange feeling, leaving the cool open air and feeling the pressures of the land crushing in, and the darkness was complete. Say goodbye to the stars, Gorham had said, and Peer found herself glancing up at them moments before Malia closed the hatch. She had never appreciated the beauty of the sky more than at that moment.
Gorham moved confidently, handing them each a torch from clips on the walls and guiding them along a short corridor to a metal door. He twisted some bolts and the door hissed open, a rush of air pulling past them as pressures equalized. So they can smell what's coming in, Peer thought, and the idea was deeply disturbing. Gorham had warned them about the things they would see down here, the chopped that the Baker used to guard her laboratories, and she was terrified.
He barely paused when they were through the door, even though the space around them opened out so that the walls were way beyond the reach of their torches. Peer had the impression of wide open spaces, and the occasional gnarled columns that the torches danced across did little to alleviate that. Rufus glanced back at her, and the light reflected in his wide eyes. Green eyes, greener than I've ever seen. The more time she spent with him, the more she was beginning to believe there was more to him than met the eye. Breaking out of Skulk, he had been so willing to kill, and now he carried his bag of strange things once more. Gorham had even returned the weapon with which Rufus had killed Gerrett. We all have to trust one another now, he'd said, as if trust could get them far.
Well, perhaps it could. She wondered whether Gorham trusted her or, when he looked at her, did he see only hatred and the potential for revenge? And with what had happened, could she even trust herself?
After a while Gorham came to a halt, hand raised. "Here they come," he said. "Stay calm and-"
Something knocked him to the ground and flitted away into the darkness. Peer heard the gentle flap of huge wings and saw something unknowable flash through the puddle of their torchlight.
"It's Gorham!" he shouted, scrambling to his feet again and raising his torch. "It's Gorham and Malia, and we bring two friends!"
"Friends to the Baker?" a voice said from the darkness, and Peer winced when she sensed something closing on them again. She pushed Rufus to the ground and fell over him, and moments later something rushed by overhead. Things lashed across the back of her neck and head, and she cried out.
"Yes!" Gorham said. "And someone she'll want to see." He was standing again, crouched low and aiming his torch about them. He glanced at Malia, Rufus, and Peer, trying a smile to indicate his control of the situation.
It did not work. Something drifted in from the shadows and plucked the torch from his hand. It doused the flame and shoved him to the ground. Then it sat astride Gorham's chest and whispered, "Wait!" At last, Peer could see the thing.
It had been a woman, but now it flew. The wings were thin and membranous, and many long tendrils drooped from her legs and lower body. A queasiness rose in Peer. This thing was unnatural, a bastardization of what should be, and however clever it might be, she found it disturbing. The Baker made the natural order of things her own personal playground. Yet through the fear and disgust came another thought, and Peer could not help smiling. Penler would love this.
"Tell Nadielle I've-"
"Wait," the flying thing whispered again. It looked at all of them, eyes resting the longest on Rufus. It hissed softly.
"But-"
"Wait."
"Best wait, I think, Gorham," Malia said. And they did, but the wait did not last for long. At a signal none of them heard, the thing lifted from Gorham's chest, disappearing into the darkness before Peer could blink.
"There's something else here," Peer said in a low voice. Never before had she sensed being watched as strongly as this. Watched, observed, analyzed-she felt eyes all over her, and whichever way she turned, the sensation grew.
"The Pserans," Malia said. "They'll guide us in now."
"Or kill us," Gorham said. He stood, brushing himself down.
"I don't see anything," Peer said.
"That's how I know they're there." Malia was turning a slow circle, and then she paused, pointing into the murk.
"There."
A pale shape emerged from the darkness-a naked woman with a wickedly sharp appendage protruding from her chest. Down each side, spines flexed and stretched.
"The Baker isn't expecting you," the Pseran said. Two more appeared, materializing as if from nowhere. Rufus did not reach for his weapon. Peer wondered why.
"We've some important news for Nadielle," Gorham said. "And someone she needs to see."
The first Pseran moved quickly, seeming to flow rather than walk as it approached Peer and Rufus. It brushed past Peer as though she was not there at all and halted within kissing distance of Rufus, eyeing him and sniffing with a delicate nose.
"Ahh," she whispered, nodding and stroking one long finger down Rufus's cheek. "Chopped."
"What?" Peer asked. "What did you say?" But the Pseran continued to ignore her. Instead, it moved past the group and ahead, indicating with one backward glance that they should follow.
"Come on," Gorham said. He sounded flustered for the first time, and Peer wondered how close they had all come to being killed.
"Chopped?" she asked Rufus. "You? Chopped?" Rufus only frowned, bemused.
Gorham was looking back at them as he walked. Peer caught his eye. He shrugged, looked at Rufus, and faced front again.
Chopped? she thought. Confused, scared, she followed, because that was the only way to go.
The Pseran guided them through this Echo of Crescent Canton, over an unstable bridge spanning a dried riverbed, and past a ruined village, where Peer caught sight of strange lights from the corner of her eye. All the while, the Pseran's two sisters-Gorham whispered of them, dropping back slightly so that the four visitors could walk and talk together-followed behind. They kept to the deep shadows, and Peer caught sight of neither, but she always knew that they were there. They watched her. But, more than that, they watched Rufus. She saw the tall man glancing about him many times, and he never once met her eyes.
They followed an old rutted track, and here the ceiling was low enough to be partially illuminated by their oil torches. Peer had been down in the Echoes before, though only a few times and always in built-up areas. Here, she could not help but be amazed at what she saw. Perhaps only two hundred steps above them were the crops that would help feed the uncountable inhabitants of Echo City, while down here the dead past was home to phantoms and dust. Some roots showed through and hung like dirt-caked spiderwebs-the deepest roots of the tallest trees. At irregular spacings were the unimaginable supports and struts laid ages ago, upon which the current Crescent Canton had grown and become the fertile area it was today. Here and there were hollows in the underside, and once Peer saw the red twinkle of blinking eyes staring back at her.