I lean through the closet doorway, peering over Sean's shoulder as he mixes lye and water in a wooden bucket. Around us, the quiet dark of the house presses in as though to remind us we're not supposed to be here.
"Are you planning on scrubbing the guards to death?" I ask, trying to hide the tremor in my voice.
"No," he clips. "You asked for a distraction. Here it is." He stands, snatching something from the shelves around us, then crouches back down to pour it into the bucket.
"What's that?"
"Do you want the explanation or the result, Leavi? Quiet, and let me work." He stands, scanning the shelves, and grabs something else to add to his mix. From his trenchcoat, he pulls out what looks like a normal timepiece. He clicks it open, revealing not a watch face, but black-powder. A pinch goes into the bucket, and he snaps his metal container closed, tucking it back in his pocket.
The mixture bubbles ominously.
Sean jams the bucket's lid down into it, sealing it shut. "Ready to run?"
"What?" I exclaim.
Standing, he grabs my hand and takes off. I let him lead me, and we fly through the corridors. Only a few hallways away, a booming crack-THUD reverberates through the building. The vibration pulses through the floor.
I stare slack-jawed at Sean. "That was you?"
He nods, putting a finger to his lips. "You think you can get us back to your charity case's cell?" he whispers.
Recovering, I dig my half-map out of my pocket. "Yeah. I think so."
"Let's go then. The back way. Hopefully, those guards will be headed here."
We wind through hallways, in and out of darkness and light. Making it back to the hall the boy's cell is on, I gesture for Sean to stay, and I edge along the wall. Heart in mouth, I peek around the corner.
Empty.
I wave at Sean, and we hurry to the boy's door. Sean unlocks it with the master copy while I pull the bar off. The door swings open.
The boy is sitting, leaned weakly against the wall, hair mussed, face gaunt, dirt caked to his skin and clothes. His eyes barely flutter open as we come in.
"You're here," he murmurs, voice slurred as though in a haze.
My heart twists. "Yes," I assure him. "We're here." My eyes dart around the dark, dirty room he's been held in for skies know how long now. "Everything's going to be okay."
I snag the key from the lock. "Careful," Sean hisses. "It's brittle."
Together, we pick the boy up and hurry out of the room, not even bothering to close the door. The limp body between us is even lighter than I expected. His bones press into my arms, making me think more of a corpse than a living boy. The air smells like smoke. Feet scuff the ground, and our shadows shift wildly on the walls, like ghosts scurrying to chase us. We turn onto the principal hallway, shouts echoing from further in the building, closer to Sean's bomb.
I pull us into an adjacent corridor. I'm not exactly sure where it leads, but I am sure that if we stay in the main way, we're going to get caught. We'll just have to find a different way out.
The boy stirs. His head turns back and forth, as though trying to take in the rushing walls, and his breaths come loud and fast. "No," he moans. "No, I—"
"Shut him up," Sean hisses.
From the halls behind us, the shouting increases.
"No one's going to hear him." The boy twists in our arms, his fevered gaze catching mine for an instant before he goes limp again. "Let's get him out of here."
"No! No, no—" He thrashes in our arms, movements surprisingly wild for someone so weak.
"What the blazes is wrong with him?" Sean exclaims.
I pause, struggling to keep from dropping the boy. "Set him down."
"What? We don't have time for this, Leavi! We need to be—"
"Set him down, Sean! We can't carry him like this."
The boy's arm jerks, popping me in the mouth. I flinch away, and Sean all but drops the boy to the ground.
He calms some. Sucking on my lip, I crouch beside him. The guards' cries still ring in the background, and my heart beats faster than it should.
"What's wrong?" I inquire gently.
The boy's eyes don't quite see me. "My cloak," he mutters. "My cloak. I need my cloak. I need my..."
"We need to move, Leavi."
Sean goes to lift him back up, but the boy becomes frenzied again. "My cloak," he groans. "My cloak. My—"
Startlingly close, a man yells, "Go get help!"
Anxiety is lightning in my blood. I hurriedly wave Sean back and take the boy's face in my hands, forcing him to focus on me. Deliberately, I ask, "Where is it?"
Faint light shines behind the haze in his eyes. "Black door. Black door," he murmurs to himself again.
I stare at him, confused. Most of the doors in the manor are brown. I don't remember ever seeing a black door except when—
"Leavi, come on." Sean grabs my shoulder, but I shrug him off. His voice is tight. "We need to get out of here. Now. If you'd prefer to do it with your head still attached, that is. Let's go."
"Stay here."
"What? Are you trying to get us killed?"
"No. I'm going to get his cloak."
I steal toward the main hallway, but Sean cuts me off. "The guy's talking out of his head, Leavi!"
"And fighting us like a madman! We're not going to get him out of here like that. Now, stay here." I push around him, heading down the hall.
"'Black door' isn't exactly a foolproof direction!"
I pad the last few steps to the hall's end. "It is to me."
Peeking around the corner, I peer down the long, main hallway. Near the end, smoke billows from the mouth of the cleaning closet's corridor. A guard runs out of another hall and into the smoke, hauling a bucket of water. I glance over my shoulder. "I'll be right back. Just stay quiet and out of sight."
He spreads his hands in outraged bafflement. "We're in the middle of an empty hallway! How do you expect us to stay out of sight?"
"Then stay quiet." Before he can say anything else, I dart across the hall.
Smoke filters into my nose. I press my muffler to my face and hurry along the corridors, back the way we came.
There it is. I draw short. The black door. The one I watched, frozen, waiting for its occupants to come out and catch me eavesdropping. The one that was slightly ajar and is now shut tight. I step forward to twist the handle.
Locked. Of course. I press the copied key in, but it won't turn. My heart sinks. Veradeaux must keep a different key for this door. I cast around for some way to open it, but just as before, the hall is empty.
Wait. "The bar," I mutter. But that's halls away.
Far off, a guard calls out. Sean's distraction won't keep them busy forever. I dash through the corridors.
There, lying discarded, is the iron bar that held the boy's cell closed. Hefting it over my shoulder, I hurry back to the black door, and before I can talk myself out of it, bring the rod down on the handle.
A metallic clang echoes down the hallway. The handle's still solid. In the distance, a fire crackles.
What did you do, Sean?
Adjusting my angle, I try again.
Loud noise, no result. "Come on!" I'm running out of time.
Another swing, and—
This time the ring is accompanied by a satisfying crack. The door swings open.
The room inside is dark, lit only by the torches in the hall. It's a study, bookshelves lining the walls, a small sitting area surrounding a cold fireplace. The back of the room hosts a large, raised worktable, reminiscent of the lab tables in Erreliah. I hurry toward it.
There. A finely woven but plain black cloak. It's laid flat, items partially pulled out of dozens of pockets. Each item wears a little white tag labeled in tiny, neat handwriting, like someone was cataloging it all. Fingers fumbling, I shove everything back in and scoop the cloth up.
The smoke grows thicker as I run back toward the main hallway. I cough and tie the muffler around my mouth and nose. Holding my breath, I peer around the corner.
My jaw drops.
Fire rages through the main hallway, crawling its way up toward me. Guards scurry through the smoke and flames, shouting orders to each other and throwing buckets of water on the blaze. The water evaporates to steam, fire never quenched. I tear my eyes away, sprinting to cross the hall before the flames reach me.
I slide to a stop.
On the other side of the hall, in an area yet untouched by the fire, stands a figure in midnight robes. His head swivels as I round the corner, and chills march through me. Without warning, the flames flicker up all around him, consuming the wood of the entire hall. I blink, stumbling back. Still, he stands there, in the midst of the blaze. The deep hood swallows his face in darkness, but I can feel his eyes on me. The flames around don't touch him, clear in a circle as though afraid to draw near.
The Man from the East.
He raises his left arm, and behind him, a section of the sudden fire dies. The right arm rises; a portion of new inferno goes cold. He extends his hands out toward me. The flames flare up, licking closer with a dark, hungry intensity.
I turn and run.
When I skid into the hall, Sean's waiting with the boy. He looks up. "Leavi?"
"Pick him up!" I throw the cloak over the boy's shoulder and grab his arm. "Let's go!"
Flames leap at the mouth of the hall. Sean glances back, eyes widening, and we get the boy back to his feet, racing for the end of the hall.
Heat flares, and I stumble back. At the end of the hall, a second fire blooms. The flames fly to the ceiling, and Sean and I struggle to regain our balance. I throw a glance behind us.
My stomach ices over. A shadowy figure stands beyond the original blaze. Slowly, his robed hand extends toward us, and the fire at our end inches closer. The boy moans.
"Leave him with me," the Man from the East intones. The fire flares closer, and I flinch. "And I'll let you go."
His words twist through me like a knife, and I tremble. Sean is frozen, staring bewildered at the flames before us.
"Leave him!" the man growls.
He's going to kill us. The cold surety sweeps through me, and I glance over at Sean. He nods.
The flames roar higher, and we plow straight into them. A chill shudders through my body, and then we burst out. Bewildered and terrified, I glance back at the cold blaze, but Sean tugs me forward.
Another fire ignites to our side, and we dodge around. There's something, though, the lighting, the heat...
"Come on," Sean yells.
"They're not real!" I shout as another pops up nearby. Stage effects, bright chemicals that don't really burn...
Smoke pours in from another corridor, and we zoom down the opposite way. Sean coughs. "They're not all fake!" My lungs burn, eyes stinging. My body begs for me to stop, but my brain screams to keep running. We need a way out, but I'm lost, and there's hallway after hallway, no exit, no way ou—
Recognition ignites in my brain. "This way!" I call to Sean over the fire's roar, ducking into the next hall. We loop back to the servant's entrance and stumble down the stairs.
Fire eats at the top of the steps.
I let go of the boy with one hand, desperately jangling the exit's handle.
"They locked it earlier, remember?" Sean shouts. "Where's the blazing key?"
I fumble through my pockets as the inferno burns hotter against my back. I glance over my shoulder. It's halfway down, and I don't dare take the chance this one's fake.
My fingers trip over the hard gel, and I dig the key out. Fingers slick and shaking, I try to jam it into the lock. I lose my grip, and the key tumbles to the ground.
I drop to my knees, and Sean grunts, holding the weight of the boy on his own. Scrabbling across the ground, my frantic fingers find the key.
The fire's at the landing, only five feet away. The heat and smoke suffocate me. My sight's a blurry haze. I shove the key into the lock and try to turn it.
It sticks.
No, no, no, it has to turn, has to—
The roar of the fire is so loud I can hardly hear myself think.
I twist the key in the lock, and it turns so hard the handle snaps off.
I scramble to my feet, dropping the useless piece, and we throw the door open, tumbling outside into the freezing night. Blustering snow flurries through the air, swallowing the manor grounds in white. The fire still roars behind us. We run.
We make it to the front of the building, eyes fixed on the gate. We're cutting across the grounds diagonally when, halfway there, a voice behind us calls, "Halt!"
My head snaps back. Two guards—the ones that went back for the truncheon—stand at the entrance to the manor, half-turned toward us. Shock fills out their features.
I curse. Sean shoots off, and I'm tugged forward, almost losing my balance. Narrowly catching my footing, I run with him, and now it's nothing but a mad dash for escape, a race we can't hope to win but must try for anyway, and the guards' feet pound behind us.
We make it to the gate, and Sean shoves the boy at me. I stumble back but manage to keep him upright. Sean struggles to lift the thick cross-piece barring the gate.
The guards are less than thirty feet away.
"Sean!"
"I know, I know!" His arms heave up and away from the gate. The bar clatters to the ground.
Together, we push through the gate, the boy dragging in the middle. The guards gain on us steadily as we run. Finding some reserve I didn't know I had left, my legs pump harder and harder, powering through their exhaustion. Somehow, Sean matches me.
We tear down the path, snow blurring our vision. The split's twenty feet ahead, and the last logical piece of my brain realizes that if we skirt the village, the guards will know we're staying at Marcí's.
"This way!" I pull left, off the path and toward the forest, snowflakes flurrying through the branches. Sean follows. Behind us, the guards' feet slam against the ground, still in pursuit.
We dash for the woods, the boy's deadweight sagging between us. My feet drag through the brambles, and I struggle not to trip. My legs burn, my arms numbing with strain, but still we press on. The moon disappears as we break through the treeline. Our feet become our eyes and our ears our catalyst, our only goal to lose the sound of the stomping steps behind us.
At some point, Sean stops, breath coming heavy and fast. I struggle to catch mine as well, and we wait there, straining to hear any noise behind us that might urge us onto deadened feet.
It's quiet. There's no sound but the calls of the night birds and the rustle of wind against dead branches.
Sean and I look at each other. Too terrified, tired, and relieved for a word to pass between us, we turn and trudge back to the inn.