Her hand reached for the knob. The foyer rippled around her, and the charms in the cottage walls made a low warning sound.
The locks slid back, each with a faint definite sound, bones clicking together. A sliver of white winter sunlight glared through a crack, widened, and Cami blinked in the sudden assault of light.
They regarded each other for a long few moments.
“I’m sorry,” Tor whispered. The bruises on his neck were livid, and the cut across his cheekbone had leaked blood, dried to a crust. He was shivering too, steam rising from his skin—he wore tattered jeans and the remains of a white T-shirt, sliced and burned. “I’m sorry. She knew I could find you.”
Cami’s hands were numb. His hair was stripped back, plastered down with crud she didn’t even want to think about, and she finally saw what had snagged her gaze on him all along.
His jawline was heavier, but it was familiar. So was the arc of his cheekbone, and the shape of his mouth, especially the space above his top lip. There was the shape of his eyes; their color had distracted her, but they were catlike and wide.
And just like hers.
I look like him. We’re the same. That was the feeling of hand in glove, of broken-in trainers. They looked . . . similar.
Related.
His Adam’s apple bobbed. “Don’t step outside.” The whisper came through cracked lips. “Please. She can only push me so far. You’re safe in there.”
I’m not safe anywhere. She found herself touching her face, wonderingly tracing the shape of her upper lip. Just like his.
Why hadn’t she seen it before?
“Run.” Tor coughed, and something moved in his black eyes. Sharp alien intelligence peered out of his drugged gaze, and he shuddered. “Please. I don’t . . . don’t want . . . Run.”
I ran once, didn’t I. Ten years ago, Mithrusmas Eve. Not far enough, though.
Never far enough. What was it the Family said?
Blood always tells.
If he went back without her, what would happen to him? And what would the Queen send next time?
I have to stop this. Cami braced herself. She slid out of her coat, and stepped outside into the cold. It was too small for him, but she wrapped her coat around his shoulders as his shivering infected her.
Tor’s hand closed around her wrist, unhealthy feverish heat scorching her skin. He let out a tired, hopeless sigh. Their footsteps crunched on the charmed path, and as soon as they stepped past Gran’s gate, his head dropped forward like a tired horse’s. Woodsdowne was deserted, and in the distance, the baying of dogs began.
The first fat flakes of the day’s snow began to whirl down.
PART III: The Sacrifice
THERE WAS NO SNOW UNDERNEATH.
The dogs hadn’t come after all. Instead, Tor had led her through the maze of Woodsdowne, west toward the core. Not for very long, though—he’d stopped at the intersection of Columbard and Lamancha Avenue. The piles of snow and ice to each side, broken by titon-plows, imitated small mountain ranges. The buildings were tall and dark here, festooned with icicles and whispering with the chill breeze. Any one of the boarded-up windows could have exploded outward, giving birth to a jumble of dog-shapes salivating and snapping their steelstruck teeth.
But it was in the very middle of the crossroads that a round slice of frozen street had silently opened its dark eye—a manhole cover, ice crackling away from its circumference, pushed up by an invisible force. Tor moved her toward it, not ungently, and she’d seen the iron rungs going down.
New Haven’s surface swallowed them, pleating closed overhead and smoothing itself like a freshly-laid sheet.
Tor took her wrist at the bottom of the ladder again, and her coat fell away from his shoulders, landing on a sodden pile of something stinking. It was almost warmer down here, but her breath still came in a cloud and thin traceries of steam. Cami stopped, and he tugged at her arm.
“N-n-n-no.” She tried to peel his fingers away, but they wouldn’t come. “I’m n-not g-g-going to r-r-run.” She would follow me. There’s no point. “H-Here.” Her voice echoed oddly, and she managed to work his hand down so his fingers laced through hers.
We’re Family, too. Every scar on her twinged heatlessly, and she wondered if he had nightmares too. Who held him when he woke screaming?
Did anyone?
A curious faraway look came over his face. There was no shadow of the garden boy there. This was an automaton, stumbling like a broken-stringed puppet through a labyrinth of concrete passageways. Pipes ran overhead and alongside them, some groaning and hissing; the floor kept steadily sloping down. She had to duck to avoid some of the pipes, Tor ducking as well with weird mechanical grace. Icicles dripped down from the infrequent gleams of light above, turning to a crusted seeping on the walls.
He took a hard right, and his fingers tensed. “Hard,” he muttered. “Interference Underneath. Bring her.”
“I-i-it’s a-all r-r-right.” Cami squeezed his hand. You can’t stop this. It’s not your fault. It’s mine. I ran away, and everything is falling apart around me. Because of me. I went where I didn’t belong. Cami’s chin raised slightly.“T-tor. It’s ok-k-kay.”
“Don’t wanna.” He shook like a rabbit, but his legs kept going. “Don’t make me.”
Oh. He’s not talking to me. So she simply followed him, going down and down, away from the light.
It never got completely dark, though. Once the glimmers from above faded and the concrete changed color, traceries of pale glowing fungus appeared on the walls. Growing in curves and sharp dots, they looked like decoration—but Cami did not want to brush against them. They smelled. Not of anything bad, just a faint breath of spice and fruit.
And smoke.
Another sharp corner. His skin was cooler now, and Cami had stopped shivering. A faint breeze, warmer than the knifing wind above, touched tendrils of her hair, fingered the walls with their glowing patterns. The fungus was like brocade, fuzzy flower-shapes soft and plush against the roughness. Down and down, and the breeze was redolent of fruit now, a summer orchard with a tinge of perfumed burning. It was warm and moist, and Cami’s skin crawled steadily. Little ant feet crawling all over her—tiny little feet of apprehension, nausea, familiarity.
I know this place.
Stairs, going down. The concrete was ancient here, and New Haven crouched overhead. How deep were they? She had no idea. Her feet ached; her fingers, locked in Tor’s, were slippery with sweat. Her boots slipped a little, and they passed through an archway. S**vAY, it said overhead, except part of it had crumbled.
Dingy tiles that had once been white, cracked and falling. It was a much larger tunnel, the breeze whooshing through it with a low hungry sound. The floor was ancient and filthy, the domed ceiling draped with long shawls and gauzy runners of that pale glowing stuff. Was it a fungus if it hung in sheets like that, intricate glowing lacework?
It reminded her of the shimmersilk scarf and its poking, slashing tassels, but she was past wincing at the thought. Instead, she stared, wide-eyed, and her heart was an insistent drum in her ears.
I am. I am. I am.
Had she stumbled this way before, six years old and terrified, forcing her small legs to pump, smelling smoke and fury? The black hole in her memory would not tell her. It just pulsed, soft slithering sounds coming from its well-mouth.