Sanctuary

Chapter Twenty: Moving On

Jeremy hurled himself down the steps two at a time as the gate exploded behind them. He dove into the marketplace crowd without looking back, twisting his way through the Moirai as Hope and Des clung to his shoulders, flapping their wings to stay balanced. Folk glared at him as he pushed past, but none tried to stop him. Hadn't Adelia mentioned something about a marketplace accord? Did that mean Moirai couldn't harm each other here?

"Where are we going?" Hope asked.

"The bridge," Jeremy said.

"But you can't travel that way!" Des said.

"We don't know that for sure. I know the field where Logan died. I have Adelia's memory of it." And so many others I don't understand, he thought.

"Why does Crag have your parents?" Hope yelled in his ear as they ran.

"I have no idea," Jeremy said, gasping for breath. And why come after him? He was nobody. Cries of alarm rang out behind them. Crag and his parents must have reached the platform. Skidding to a halt at the foot of the bridge, he peered back toward the marketplace. There was a roar, and two massive black creatures lumbered across the far tunnel entrance.

"Golems," Des said. "Crag has broken the accords."

"Maybe they'll stop him," Hope said.

A fiery ball erupted in the distance, like an artillery shell, some part of Adelia's memories informed him.

"We have to go," he said. "Can you channel your energy into me? Like Adelia and Otto did?"

"Yes, but it won't be nearly enough," Hope said. "You heard them. We're minor folk, Jeremy. We don't have that much power."

"It has to be enough," Jeremy said. He reached for his pocket, for the comfort of Adelia's gold, but it was gone.

"Without Adelia, we're just—" Des started to say, but Jeremy cut her off.

"Wait." He reached into his shirt and wrapped his fingers around the snake and bear amulet. Adelia, Zitkala Sa, and Frank had all said it was a powerful artifact. Maybe it would be enough to get them through. A loud crash came from the marketplace, the noise reverberating through the tunnel. "We have to go, now!" The hair stood up on the back of his neck, and goosebumps ran down his arms as Hope and Des poured what energy they had into him. He spared one last look over his shoulder and saw a long, red dragon slithering through the air toward Crag and his parents. The beast looked as if someone had painted it into reality with red and yellow colored pencils. Maybe it would stop him, but Jeremy wasn't going to stick around to find out.

"We're going to die," Des said just before they reached the wall of black.

Jeremy held the image of the French battlefield in his mind. "Probably," he said, stepping into the wall of black. Everything vanished. The sounds and smells of the marketplace and the abandoned tunnels didn't fade away; they disappeared instantly when he crossed the threshold of black. His sight and hearing and his sense of direction were all gone. Sudden dizziness gripped him, and panic clenched his stomach as bile rose in the back of his throat. Was he dead?

"Focus, seer," Hope's voice was distant but real.

"The battlefield," said Des. "World War I. Hold the image in your mind."

He clenched the amulet tightly and felt the bear and snake, wisdom and strength. The battlefield rushed toward them, or he was hurtling toward it; he couldn't tell which. An instant later, dew covered grass met his hiking boots. The landscape filled in around him, muted colors and a wasteland of barren tree trunks, stumps, and blast holes. A trench opened in front of him. Across from it, in the nightmarish field, iron crosses and barbed wire were strewn about. This was a memory, then. Not a place now. How would that affect traveling? Were they traveling now, or had he trapped them in this place for eternity? Turning from left to right, he saw corpses twisted in the barbed wire. It was a landscape frozen in time.