As Moon and Stone followed Jade and Merit into the cabin, everyone looked up, and Bramble held out the bowl of melon. She said, “I’m making tea.”
Jade said, “Wait, we need to talk.”
Chime hurried down the corridor with Balm and River behind him. Once they were all together, Jade slid the door shut, lowered her voice and said, “In that room we found, where the waterlings had destroyed almost everything except the silver cage thing Root picked up.”
Everyone nodded except Balm and River, who must have only heard parts of what had happened. Root ducked his head and tried to look unobtrusive. Jade finished, “Did anyone else pick it up?”
Moon looked around the room. In the dark, in the confusion, with everyone waving their lights around at random, it would have been easy for someone to slip the object into a pack. Especially if compelled to by an influence that had made them immediately forget what they had done. Moon had already checked his own, Jade’s, Chime’s, and Stone’s packs, which had been dumped in the cabin downstairs, even though he didn’t think it was likely to be there. Moon had walked out with one hand around Root’s arm, and the others had all been in the front part of the room, too far ahead to get back to where the object had lain without anyone else noticing. And Rorra had been carrying Delin, though he suspected the spell was like the trap, and had been aimed at Raksura, or a species related to Raksura.
The warriors and Bramble stared at Jade, confused. “No,” Song said, a little hurt. “You said not to.”
“Why would we—” Bramble began, then went still as the implications hit her. “You think—”
Delin sat up all the way, dislodging his cushion, alarmed. “You think the compulsion caused someone to take it?”
Jade said, “Check your packs.”
The packs had been dumped by the wall and Briar got up to pass them over to the others. The packs didn’t hold much, most of the warriors having only brought what they thought they might need on the search for the way out of the city, leaving the rest of their belongings on the sunsailer. Song turned hers out, revealing a still-glowing cup, a nearly empty waterskin, a crumpled spare shirt, a little pouch for flints, and some fragments of cloth waterproofed with mountain-tree sap that had been wrapped around food. Bramble’s and Root’s packs all held variations on the same, though Root squeezed his eyes shut with trepidation before he dumped his out. Briar sat down, opened hers, and stared down at it. “Jade . . .”
Moon stepped between Bramble and Root, and crouched beside Briar. Inside her pack was the dull silver cage, the crystal gleaming faintly in its center.
Briar’s eyes were wide with horror. “I—I didn’t—I don’t even remember—”
Moon felt a surge of sympathy for her. He knew it hadn’t been her fault and he hated to see anyone singled out like this. He told Briar, “You couldn’t help it. And you were right behind me and I didn’t see you.” He looked up at Jade. “This thing really wanted out of there.”
“It’s not your fault, Briar,” Jade said. Her jaw was set, as if it was taking a lot of effort not to hiss. Or maybe scream. Moon wanted to scream a little himself. They had been tricked into taking this object with them and there just couldn’t be anything good behind it. They had come here to prevent the mentors’ vision of a massive Fell attack on the Reaches from coming true, and he had a bad feeling they had just made that vision more possible.
Watching Briar’s pack nervously, Song said, “You think it made those waterlings come after us?”
Delin climbed off the bench and limped over to look more closely at the object. “Possibly whatever influence it projects that drew us to it also drew them, as an unwanted side effect. It may explain their attraction to the city, why they came here from the ocean. Possibly it also drew the Fell.” He looked up at Jade and added bluntly, “You understand we will be accused by the Kishan of stealing this thing, for our own purposes.”
Jade grimaced. “We came here to prevent the Fell from getting inside this city, because we were afraid there was something dangerous inside it that they could use against us. That was our purpose. All I want to do is leave this thing here.”
“Can we put it back?” Balm asked, obviously thinking furiously. “We could get back up there . . . Except for the waterlings . . .”
Stone leaned against the wall, sighing wearily. “It’s too late for that. If the trap was meant to guide forerunners to this thing, it would work for the Fell, too.”
“But what is it?” Chime asked helplessly. “What does it do?”
No one had an answer for that. Moon said, “If we were forerunners, I guess we’d know. Or be able to figure it out.”
Chime stepped over to peer cautiously into the pack. “I wonder if the Fell know, or if they just think it’s a weapon, like what the creature in the forerunner city offered them.”
Delin’s face, already wreathed with new lines from exhaustion, wrinkled further in consternation. “Perhaps this was what it meant to offer them.”
There was a general moment of silent dismay. They couldn’t just leave it in poor Briar’s pack, so Moon started to reach for it. “No, better not to touch it,” Delin said.
Root rubbed his hands on his pants anxiously. “I touched it.”
Briar winced. “I must have touched it too.”
“Well, nobody touch it anymore,” Bramble said. “Here.” She pulled a leather bag out of a supply pack. “Tip it into this.”
Moon took the pack and managed to work the object out and into the bag Bramble held open without touching it. As Bramble laced the top down, Chime asked, “But what do we do with it? I know the Kishan will want it, or think they want it, but whatever it is or does, we can’t let them have something that’s going to attract Fell. They’ll never get home alive with it.”
Jade rubbed her temples. “I don’t know. Unless we just drop it in this canal.”
Moon didn’t think that would work. “If the Fell get into the city when we get out, it might draw them to it, like it did the waterlings. And us.”
“We could drop it in the ocean.” Root looked up at Jade. “It’s not far from here, is it?”
Moon stared, then exchanged a look with Chime. Chime said, “That’s not a bad idea.”
“The ocean’s deep, right?” Root continued. He turned to Stone. “Deeper than the sea-mounts are tall. And there aren’t any sealings.”
Jade’s spines flicked thoughtfully. Stone stared absently into the distance, considering it. He said, “I’ve never heard of sealings going into the ocean, or any talk of anything out there that had any interest in shallow-sea dwellers or land-dwellers. Except to eat them.” He folded his arms, leaning back against the door. “It isn’t a bad idea.”
“We don’t even know what it is.” Delin sounded depressed. He made his way back to the bench and sat down heavily. “There were carvings in that room. I should have stopped to record them. Or we should have brought Vendoin, to copy any writing on the walls that we were unable to see.”
“There wasn’t time,” Bramble told him. “The waterlings destroyed the books that were in there. Those were probably important too. And all the other broken things in that room.”
Moon added, “It might not even work like it’s supposed to anymore.” But he was thinking of the freshwater sea and the bridle that had been used to control the leviathan there. It had still worked after all these turns, even though the magisters who had originally constructed it were long dead.
Jade flicked her spines in decision. “If we get out of here, if we get past the Fell, we’ll drop it in the ocean.” She glanced at Merit. “Merit can scry on it in the meantime. Maybe he can get some idea if that will work or not.”