Wayfarer by Alexandra Bracken
“Thorns!” someone shouted above the shrieks, the vibrations of the dark one’s speech, the screams of agony and fear as the travelers tried to flee.
Another voice. “Hemlock!”
Henry spun Etta away; she heard, rather than saw, the explosion of a gunshot that ripped through the din of clanging metal. He jerked, but didn’t fall—Etta reached up, trying to pull back to see where he’d been hit, only to find that a man in a trim suit behind him was already slumping to the ground, shot clean through the skull.
The smoke from the burning stall began to fill the air, but it lifted as her mother stepped forward without a mask, her rifle still raised—pointed now at Henry, who calmly brought up his sword, bringing it to rest at the spot where Rose’s long, pale neck met her shoulder. She, too, was wearing the white auction robes, though now she had painted herself red and black with blood and smoke.
Etta pulled back from Henry with a jerk of alarm.
Rose’s cool expression slipped at the sight of them, cracking enough for her relief to bleed through.
“Can you get her out of here?” Henry asked.
Rose said nothing, only nodded.
“No—!” Etta ripped herself out of his grip. “You don’t understand, the astrolabe—you can’t destroy it—”
A familiar cry had Etta spinning back around. Nicholas had taken cover behind the overturned table with Sophia and Li Min. As one, they lifted it and used it as a battering ram, charging into the two Shadows who’d begun taking turns driving their claws through the body of one of the Thorns on the ground, trying to crawl over to another wounded young man.
When she looked toward her mother, Rose was nearly unrecognizable in her bone-pale terror.
Etta turned slowly.
It was the quiet, the way he absorbed the sounds around him like a vacuum, that was so deeply disturbing. The walls seemed to kneel to him, leaning forward, as if with each step he quietly devoured more of the world. The man in gold glided forward through the wreckage. The fighting fell away from him, the shadowed attackers drawing their prey into the stalls like predators wanting to feast on their kills. The hem of his robe was soaked up to the knee with blood.
Henry reached for her, but it was her mother who seized her. Etta found herself tucked between her mother’s back and the wall of the tent as the glittering man passed by. This close, his face had the consistency of rice paper. For a terrifying moment, Etta imagined she could see the dark blood throbbing through his rootlike veins.
But she wasn’t shaking—her mother was. Rose Linden, who had hunted tigers, betrayed Ironwoods, conquered an unfamiliar future, was shaking. As if that same raw fear carried vibrations through the air, the radiant man stopped suddenly, turning toward them, his eyes seeking. Recognition flared as he found Rose, his lips curving into a horrifying imitation of a smile.
“Hello, child.”
A whisper.
A curse.
Knowledge flooded Etta, filling the cracks in the picture she had begun to assemble of her mother’s life. Henry stepped in front of them both, but the man had no interest in him. As the man passed by, her father recoiled, as if the man had brushed his soul. There was something about the way the air itself seemed to curl and vibrate around the man, bowing to him, that made Etta’s stomach clench again.
“My God, my God, Rosie—” Henry said, turning toward her.
“You…believe me?” The vulnerability in her mother’s words was shattering.
“I’m sorry,” Henry said, so softly that Etta wasn’t sure her mother could hear him over the swarm of fighting. It felt as if she were standing in the path of two hurricanes finally on the verge of collision, the winds of clashing blades and blood whipping around them.
“Etta!”
Etta pulled herself free from her mother at Sophia’s bellow. Sophia was standing back to back with Li Min now, staving off two Thorns who had blades of their own. “Ironwood’s got it!”
Etta searched through the blazing fire and darkness until she found the place where the flames had eaten a hole in the side of the tent. There she saw an older man, his mask still on, rushing out into the courtyard, dodging the Shinto priests as they attempted to throw buckets of water onto the flames to stifle the fire before it jumped to the temple.
Between her and that opening, however, was Nicholas, with a Shadow clinging to his back; one clawed hand was on the verge of raking across his throat, no matter how hard Nicholas tried to buck his attacker off. His palm came up to block the next swipe of the claws, and blood instantly pooled where they cut deep into his flesh. Etta rushed toward him, but then Julian seemed to materialize out of thin air, shooting the man with what she thought must have been Sophia’s flintlock. The bullet wasn’t enough to deter the Shadow for long, but it was long enough for Nicholas to reclaim his sword from the ground.
The Shadow lunged again, but as Nicholas moved, the small leather cord he wore around his neck escaped his robe, and a large bead swung out from beneath his shirt. Etta might have imagined it—smoke was gathering heavily around them, masking them in silver—but when the Shadow stabbed at his heart, the bead caught the tip of the blade. The Shadow seemed almost enraptured by the unexpected sight, and, seizing his chance, Nicholas swung the blade back with as much strength as he had in him, bringing it down on the Shadow.
Astrolabe—Ironwood, she reminded herself.
The last sight Etta had before rushing out into the courtyard was of the Belladonna, standing where she had stood the entire night, watching the blood creep across the stones and absorb the ashes at Julian’s and Nicholas’s feet. She surveyed the fighting with the long-suffering look of a mother. Then she turned and left through a wall of fire and smoke, disappearing into the star-encrusted belly of the night.
THE MOON WAS HIGH AND BRIGHT ABOVE HER AS SHE RAN, searching for Ironwood’s figure down the path, among the trees, in any crevice the snake could have slithered into. The passage at the base of the mountain would have closed up with the first traveler’s death, but he had the astrolabe—he could create his own escape, and then seal the entrance and prevent anyone from following behind.
The air was clean and sweet in her lungs, but Etta couldn’t stop coughing, hacking up the smoke and spit and bile from deep inside her chest as she ran, her feet struggling in the soft earth.
Damn it, she thought. He couldn’t take the astrolabe now, not after everything—
“Etta! Etta, where are you?” Nicholas’s frantic voice carried down from above, but she didn’t stop—she had caught another voice on the wind.
“—face me! Face me once and for all! Let us end this!”
Etta stumbled down the weathered path, stopping just long enough to keep herself upright before picking up her pace again. Ironwood’s shouts sent birds launching from the safety of their branches.
The man had torn away his mask and robe, revealing a fine suit beneath. He was pacing up and down the path, his breathing ragged; his hand clenched at what remained of his hair, twisting it. Rivulets of sweat poured off him, along with the stench of blood.
“I know you’re out there!” he shouted—to the trees, to the darkness. “It’s mine, do you hear me? Come for it again and I’ll tear you apart, limb from limb!”
Etta had only had one real interaction with the man, but the frantic quality of his speech, the way he paced and screamed as if the words were being torn from him, made her feel like she was meeting him for the first time. His control over himself, his family, the machinations of the world, had been so tight and refined; she couldn’t reconcile that man with the knotted mess of anxiety and desperation in front of her. This was the same person who had bent time to his will? Who had subjected whole families to his cruelty?
“Do you hear me, you devil?” he shouted.
She came up short, a few feet away, but Cyrus Ironwood didn’t seem to notice. The empty box lay overturned nearby, and he was waving the astrolabe in the air, holding it up for the moon to witness, as if
“Ironwood,” Etta said, walking toward him slowly. She kept the knife in her hand pressed to her side.
He spun toward her, eyes flashing. It was like looking in the face of a child, one who’d been struck once and knew he was about to be hit again. His rage was nearly choking him, polluting the cool mountain air.
She had a knife on her. He had only the torch.
And the astrolabe.
“Give it to me,” she said, holding out her hand. “It’s over.”
Ironwood swung around toward her, his gaze clouding. “Over? The Ancient One is dead?”
Ancient One?
Etta swallowed. Nodded. She reached out her free hand, repeating, “Give me the astrolabe….”
“It’s mine,” he told her, the rough lines of his face painted with blood and soot. His mouth twisted up in glee. “Years…years…it’s mine, finally, and mine alone—”
Her fingers curled more tightly around the knife.
She was close enough to smell his sweat now.
Without giving him a second to prepare, Etta lunged forward, grabbing for the astrolabe. With a speed she didn’t expect, his arm flew out, backhanding her sharply across the face. And suddenly, his rage had a target—a focus. Etta stumbled back, swinging her knife between them to try and keep him back. The torch dropped from his hand, but didn’t go out as it struck the path.
Ironwood swung the astrolabe toward her temple, heavy and unyielding, and it narrowly missed crushing her skull. But she was off-balance, and Ironwood seized the advantage and dropped his head, charging her with a rough yell, throwing her down onto her back. Etta’s breath left her in a rush as she rolled to avoid his next blow, but not quickly enough. Ironwood caught her by the hair and yanked her back down, hard enough to tear a clump of it out at the roots. The knife was out of her hand and in his, the blade flashing in the moonlight.
“You want this?” he cried, holding the astrolabe in front of her face. Etta reached for it, but Ironwood drew it back so sharply, so suddenly, that it went flying from his sweat-slick fingers. With a cry, he dove for it, but Etta yanked his leg back and dragged herself forward, snatching it just long enough to throw it as hard as she could into the dark forest, out of his reach.
Etta couldn’t hear the words he screamed at her over her thundering pulse, she only felt him slam her back to the ground, flipping her over again, his spittle flying in her face. She kicked, trying to claw at his face, but the knife was back in his hand and suddenly at her cheek, dragging the blade down against it. He closed his other hand over her throat.
“You did this, all of you, you did this—”
Etta reached up, trying to drive her fingers into his eyes, her broken nails clawing at his face.
“Rose,” he howled down at her, his eyes unfocused, “Rose Linden! Are you satisfied? Are you satisfied?”
The sound the blade made as it pierced him from behind, the sickeningly wet thump and the spray of blood across her face, would never leave Etta as long as she lived. Then the blade was torn back through his body, and she was forced to watch as he choked on his own hot blood, his hand pressed to the gaping wound in his chest. His head turned as he slumped to the side, his fingers finally becoming lax enough for Etta to scramble out from underneath him.
“No,” Rose said, wiping her blade against the side of her tattered white robe. “Now I have my satisfaction.”
Etta stared up at her from the ground, willing the feeling back into her limbs. Her mother stared down at her, her skin tight over delicate bones.
“Rose!”
Henry’s voice echoed down from the top of the mountain path. Rose turned—not toward the sound, but behind her, just as the man in the golden robe slashed a clawlike blade over her throat.
NICHOLAS HEARD ONLY ETTA’S SCREAM.
It flew to him over the sounds of savage fighting and the moans and begging of the wounded.
“Oh God,” Sophia said, swinging around, searching for its source. Li Min took her hand and led them both out of the tent at a full run. Nicholas tried to dash after them, but he stumbled, his entire right side limp. He cursed his body, the weakness that threatened to dissolve him at his joints, the Belladonna—
But then there was an arm around his side, and his arm was being thrown over a shoulder, and Julian was there, sweat-soaked and grim. He glanced over at Nicholas, and at his brother’s nod of acquiescence, dragged them both forward.
The last of the travelers shoved themselves through the burning mouth of the tent, only to be pursued by the Shadows, who left the massacre inside to claim more lives. Nicholas turned to look back, taking stock—there were dozens of bodies on the floor, both travelers and Shadows alike. Nearly the whole of Ironwood’s traveling force, and an equal number of Thorns. More dead than he had ever realized were alive.
How many of our kind survive now?
Near the entrance a woman was crawling, laboring through the gore and flames to an older man, crying, “Father—Father?” Beside her, another man rocked the unmoving body of a younger one, weeping.
Julian hurried by, and then they followed the path the silvery smoke was taking, along the mountain path. But no sooner had they taken a few long strides down it than the nightmare claimed them, too.
For there was their grandfather, choking on his last gasps of life, clawing at the ground beneath him.
There was Rose Linden in Henry Hemlock’s arms, her hand pressed to the line of blood at her throat.
There was the man in gold, striding toward the dark line of the forest, searching.
There was Etta, illuminating them all with the single torch in her hands. There was Etta, throwing it as hard as she could. The fire spun end over end, striking the back of the ornate robe, right where a powerful sun had been embroidered.
The blaze took hold like a spark on brittle parchment. The sound, the whoosh of purifying, ravaging fire as it caught the ends of the man’s hair and lit him like a fuse, would never leave Nicholas, however long he lived. Nor would the look of quiet disbelief as the alchemist’s son looked back over at his shoulder at a sobbing Etta in the instant before he was fully engulfed.
Li Min and Sophia stood a few feet from them on the path, thunderstruck by the sight. He had to believe it was the stink of scorched flesh that made Julian gag. Voices shrieked from the forest, ragged and almost inhuman. Li Min staggered, clutching at her chest as if feeling something release there. Sophia caught her before she fell, but Li Min could not tear her eyes away from where the body of the man was still burning.
They approached slowly.
“—had to be her.” Rose was struggling with each word, her hand clutching Henry’s arm, her eyes locked on his stricken face. “My baby—Shadows—”
“Shhh,” Henry said, trying to stanch the flow of blood from the cut with fabric torn from his robe. “Don’t speak just yet—it will be all right—be still, darling, be still.”
Li Min ran to him and the man glanced up, desperate. He shifted to allow her to inspect the wound with careful hands. She reached for the small leather bag draped from her belt, one of her own knives.
“I understand now…you led them away from us, didn’t you?” he was saying to Rose, distracting her from Li Min’s work. “Clever, clever darling. You won’t go, now that you’ve only just arrived, will you? Won’t you stay for just one more dance?”
Just beyond them, Etta was on her knees, heaving for air, trying to crawl toward her parents. Julian started toward her, but she waved her hands, trying to control her crying so she could speak. Nicholas thought he had never seen anything so brave in his life.
“The astrolabe—” Etta pointed toward the nearby patch of forest, squeezing the words out between her tears. “I can’t, I can’t do it, it’s—”
Footsteps crashed through the forest; voices cried out, searching for the astrolabe. Shadows, undeterred. Fi
He pulled Julian away from her. They were nearly out of time and he loved her, he loved her, he loved her enough to not go through with it, to not leave her side. Which meant he had to go, and it needed to be now.
He and Julian broke apart to search with nothing more than a frantic look between them, Nicholas bracing himself against one tree, then the next, making his way through the darkness. In the distance, he saw two shadowed figures weaving through the trees. Branches and rocks mauled and battered him on all sides, but he kept his eyes on the ground, searching through the pockets of darkness, the shifting dirt, the patchwork of ferns and shrubs. The breath burned in and out of his lungs, and his side began to ache in a way that might have doubled him over if he were not so singularly terrified for the lives of everyone he had left behind on the path, of the way the Shadows around him were beginning to shift and gather.
But he felt it. He felt the vibration, the dread that broke out across his skin; slowly, he turned and retraced his steps to where a glimmer of ancient gold peered out of a small animal’s burrow. His left hand was slick with his own blood, from the deep cut which he’d been a fool to get; it had been protesting each time he so much as twitched a finger. He hardly felt it now—hardly felt the cold, or took notice of the way his hot breath steamed out into the air, hardly heard Sophia and Julian calling out to him.
Time seemed to bend around him, encasing his body in amber. Even his movements felt distressingly forced, as if he were struggling to move forward against a great wind without a line to assist him.
But he knelt.
He crawled.
He took the considerable weight of the astrolabe in his hand, staining it with his blood as he removed his dagger from his boot with his other.
Touching it flooded his senses, shot his blood through him with dizzying heat. He felt the astrolabe pulse, as if with its own heartbeat, its pace increasing to match the slamming of his heart. Now that it was in his hand, his reason for taking it slipped out of his mind; he couldn’t quite remember it, not with the images that suddenly flooded his field of vision like dreams borne on the wind.