Madly (15 page)

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Samantha

WE'RE LEAVING AT FIRST LIGHT tomorrow, so we have one night in the mountain lodge.

The window in the dining room on the second floor offers the most amazing view of Mount Hallah. The peak here rises dramatically out of the earth, the first of a series of mountains that stretch beyond my range of vision, rising and falling like waves frozen in time. A blanket of white covers the top third of the mountain's visible surface—crisp and unbroken.

As if fulfilling a wish I hadn't made yet, a gentle drift of snow begins to fall outside the window. I watch it as the sun goes down, bathing the mountainside in a pink glow. It is a peaceful scene.

I shiver and look down into my hot mug of cocoa. I think my bones know the words “mountain” and “peaceful” don't really go well together.

Chocolate—so many uses it's stupid to list them all, even in my head.

I'm alone now. Zol didn't come down to dinner at all, thankfully. Zain did, but he kept his distance while Kirsty and Dan were around. I overheard him talking on the phone to their team of lab techs back at ZA headquarters. I think back to my dad arriving at our hotel room in Loga and taking home the paste. I wonder how things would be different if I had the resources of a full mixing lab. Or even if Granddad had agreed to come. He's the only person I know who must feel the same rush that I do when I think about the mix. And I keep returning to Dan's awe-filled words. I sometimes forget that my granddad was younger than me when he made some of his most important mixes.

Zain catches my eye a couple of times during dinner, but I successfully avoid holding his gaze. Still, my stomach can't stop fluttering, making it difficult to eat. Stupid, treacherous tummy.

I spin around at the sound of an awkward cough. He's standing in the doorway, dressed in the most casual clothes I've seen him in: a hoodie, faded blue and worn at the wrists, ripped jeans, and a knitted beanie covering all his hair except the most unruly strands.

He's never looked so hot. I am in similarly relaxed clothes, but while he manages effortless cool, I manage . . . just plain slob.

“Any chance of a hot drink around here?”

I slowly place the mug in my lap and swallow the mouthful I'd been drinking in a big gulp. “I finished the
last of the cocoa, so there's only instant coffee. And black, I'm afraid. The milk's gone off.”

“Right now, I think I'd take lukewarm instant over a steaming hot shot of espresso any day.”

I laugh. “Yeah, so much better than an extra-large vanilla bean latte.”

“Completely.” He drops two heaped teaspoons of instant into a mug and moves toward the flask of hot water.

“I'd add sugar to that,” I pipe up. “Helps take away the dishwater taste.”

“Wise. Not only good at potions mixing, huh? You've got barista skills too?”

“I'm a girl of many talents.”

“Got that right.” He smiles. “I'm glad you're still in the hunt. I wasn't sure if I'd see you again, what with Emilia doing everything possible to stop us.”

I wish I hadn't finished my drink so quickly. Now I have nothing to do but hold my mug and look at him. Luckily, he keeps talking and doesn't notice my awkward, fidgeting hands. “Everyone seems to forget that at the center of this is just a girl. Things are getting really bad for Evelyn, you know? They've had to restrain her . . . but it could make things worse. Evelyn is so insanely strong.”

“You're really worried about her, huh?”

“I'm worried that none of us are going to be able to save her. If we can't . . . I don't want to know what
that will mean for her. For the whole of Nova. And this Wilde Hunt—we think we're collecting the right ingredients, but who knows? She's been working on her potion for years. What if we miss something? What if no one gets it right?”

“I guess it's why the hunt was called, to get the best of the best on the case . . .”

“But we're risking Evelyn's life.” He pauses. “And the hunt also called Emilia, who is only thinking about the power—she doesn't want Evelyn to be cured.” He pounds his fist on the table. “The worst thing is, I can't actually believe Evelyn hid the potion from me this whole time. If she'd been so desperate for help, I would've done something. I mean, we were friends. The best of, or so I thought.”

This sounds like a rant he's needed to have for a long time, so I let him finish. After a few moments of silence, I say, “Zain?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you think it was meant for you?”

“What?”

I don't answer, just tap the rim of my empty mug.

“The love potion?” He sighs. “Yeah. It looks like.”

“Then she put us all at risk first. For you.”

We sit in silence. Staying here any longer feels more dangerous than the hike up the mountain. “I better get some sleep,” I say. “See you tomorrow?”

He nods. “Night.”

“Night.” I jump off the window ledge. I only get the chance to take a few steps before Zain calls me back. “Sam?”

I turn around, hesitant. If I look at him, I might not be able to tear my eyes away again.

“Look . . .” He fumbles his coffee mug, sloshing liquid over the side. He cries out in pain so I leap for some paper towels, and before I know it I'm dabbing hot coffee from the back of his hand. He laughs. “Well, that was smooth. What I meant to say was, you never answered me before, when I asked if I could see you after this is all over?”

I concentrate hard on dabbing, but he moves his other hand over mine. I let him hold it there for a second before I pull away. I remember who this is. This is Zain Aster. “Um, I don't know . . .”

“Okay, don't answer now. When this is over?”

I bite my lip and nod, then continue back to my room.

Kirsty isn't there. I lie on the bed, listening to my heart racing in my chest. All I want now is to call up Anita and tell her how crazy my life is right now. I wonder if she's up in some other mountain lodge somewhere, thinking about me. She probably hates me.

I hug a pillow tight to my chest. Dissecting Zain's actions will need to wait until after I'm back from the mountain. And then I can think about how unfair it is that the guy I have a huge crush on, who has just asked me out, who I want to go out with, is my biggest competition.

Chapter Thirty

Samantha

I THOUGHT I WAS PRETTY fit, but climbing this mountain—even just to the base camp—is steadily killing me. We left so early we watched the sunrise over the range, and I don't think I've experienced anything more breathtaking—quite literally. The sky now is such a clear, crisp blue that it makes any other blue sky I've ever seen feel gray and smog-ridden by comparison. Ahead, the snow blankets the ground, blazingly bright as far as the eye can see. Every now and then a shrub bursts through the frozen ground and there are white flowers, as pretty as snowflakes, growing in bunches. I scoop up a handful and put them in my pack.

Mountain sweet petals—for schizophrenia and delusions. Also a potent cure for insomnia.

They're lovely, and would be perfect in our stockroom. Maybe I do have Finding instincts in my blood after all.

“Come on, keep up.”

Kirsty stands a few feet away with her thumbs looped behind the straps of her backpack. I roll my eyes at her and don't bother replying. She's been grumpy ever since we had to leave Dan back at the hotel. But I concentrate. I can do this.

The first sign of flags fluttering over the crest of the hill is an incredibly welcome sight. I take another bite of an energy bar to keep going. It seems to help, because all of a sudden I've caught up with the rest of the group. They are staring down at the cabin that marks the base camp. A line of flags stand tall on the roof of the cabin, signifying the nationalities of people who have climbed the mountain.

“Something wrong?” Kirsty says to Jedda. He's about five foot five—a good five inches shorter than me—but he's made a giant by the immensity of his backpack. He's carrying the ZA supplies—tents, sleeping bags, food, potion equipment, everything. Kirsty and I have shared out our belongings between us.

Jedda sucks on his bottom lip. “There should be smoke coming from that cabin, but there is nothing.”

“Oh, don't tell me that you lied to us,” said Zol, throwing up his arms in exasperation. “There's no one up here, is there?”

“Have some respect,” says Kirsty, throwing Zol a dirty look as Jedda bounds down the mountain path toward the cabin. We follow close behind, his speed worrying
me. There's a curious electricity in the air up here, and I wonder if it's because we're so deep into the Wilds—it's so fresh it almost makes my skin sting. But there's another sensation underneath that, something that feels wrong—and it's probably being driven by Jedda's nervousness. He's now walking up to the cabin trying to appear relaxed, but I can see the whites of his knuckles as he grips the backpack.

Kirsty overtakes him and reaches the cabin first. She knocks. Like something out of a horror flick, the door swings open at her touch. That's not a good thing. Up here, in this cold, with this weather . . . I can't imagine anyone leaving a door open by accident.

She steps inside, quickly followed by Jedda and the rest of us. The cabin is completely deserted. Papers are strewn everywhere, cupboard doors open, one of them a pile of splintering wood on the ground. The cupboards are completely bare. Somehow, I don't think this is what base camp is supposed to look like.

It's not very big, with only one main room and a bathroom, and it's empty of people. There are no other Sherpas up here, and no sign of any other teams from the hunt either. Well, except for the fact that it's been ransacked.

I look at Kirsty. She's thinking the same thing.

Emilia.

Jedda reaches into his pack and pulls out a radio. He
tries to radio down to the village, but he only gets static. He frowns. “Normally, we get signal up here, even though we are so high,” he says. I wonder about the electric crackle I felt outside, whether that has anything to do with it.

“We should go back,” Jedda says.

“No!” we all say in unison, then look at each other nervously.

I say the words we've all been too cagey to mention yet. “We're both here for abominable fur, right?” I wait, and then Zain nods. “Well, let's find it together and then get out of here.”

Zol looks like he's about to burst with fury, but his anger and power hold no sway up here in the mountains. Or maybe he looks so red-faced because he's even more out of shape than me. He takes a blisterpack from his coat and pops out a red pill.

“What is that?” Kirsty asks.

“Zolorantium. Helps with the altitude sickness.”

“Yeah right,” she scoffs.

“It's been highly praised by many great Finders, hikers, and skiers.”

“All of whom probably travel with their own stash of coca leaves.” Kirsty holds out a few leaves in her hand to me, and I take them. “Best to chew them,” she says as I look down at the leaves dubiously. Then, in a generous gesture for Kirsty, she offers them to Zol.

He turns his nose up at the leaves, predictably, and
takes two of the red pills instead. “Right, then,” he says. “Let's get going, shall we? No point messing around in here while clearly someone is trying to prevent us from finding the abominable.”

For once, I agree with Zol. I don't want to stay in this empty cabin, up this terrifying mountain, for any longer than I have to.

“What if it's Emilia?” I ask.

“Then I'd like to see that woman come after me,” Zol says, puffing out his chest. “She should have remained in exile.”

“Hey, look at this.”

Zain kneels in the debris. There's a broken picture frame in his hand. He waves me over and passes the picture to me. I run my fingers gently over the image, carefully avoiding the broken glass. It's a photo of a young woman, her crimson lips the only splash of color in an otherwise black-and-white still. Her hair is tied in a bun at the nape of her neck, and she's wearing a military-style jacket with a high collar. While the expression in her round face is solemn, there's a twinkle in her eye that I recognize. I think.

“Cleopatra Maria Kemi,” Zain says, looking down at a little gold plaque that has also been ripped from the wall. “Looks like she was here over a century ago—the first woman to conquer the mountain. Relative of yours?”

“My great-grandmother,” I say in barely a whisper.

“Seriously?” He raises an eyebrow. “That's epic.”

I swallow and nod. Pride grips my heart. This is what I've known all along. The Kemi legacy. Great-grandma Cleo was a pioneer. Maybe I can be a pioneer too. I want to take the picture with me, but she belongs here. I hang her back up on the wall, adjusting the frame until it sits perfectly straight.

We gather outside, and the wind has picked up considerably. Jedda points to a pass leading further up the mountain. “The last abominable to be seen was up that way. Do you want to start there?”

Kirsty and Zol nod. After a quick check of supplies, we begin the climb. Now I appreciate having the heavy boots. The climb is much steeper here than it was before, and I need the grip against the icy slopes.

Dotted up the mountainside, I can see the yawning black entrances of caves, home to the abominables. The cave system is so extensive that there could be an abominable looking down on us right now and we would never know.

Every now and again, Kirsty stops and looks through her binoculars. She gazes across the mountains in broad sweeps, focusing on the caves but also on the seemingly flat expanses of white snow. What might look like flat ground because of the sheer, shadowless white is actually steep mountainside.

I unwind the scarf from around my neck. Despite
the temperature, I'm warm from the exercise and being under the sun. Kirsty looks over at me, then passes me the binoculars.

“What am I looking for?” I ask.

“Tracks,” she says. “Abominables themselves are pretty hard to spot. But look for deep tracks in the snow, and then for any rocks nearby. Rocks—bare, not-yet-covered-in-snow rocks—are going to be the only way for us to find any fur. Trees maybe, but we're moving pretty high beyond the treeline now, so any shrubs you see are gonna get more and more sparse.”

I do a slow, steady panorama of the nearest mountainside, but can't see anything. I pass the binoculars back to Kirsty. “Never mind,” she says. “Our luck would have to take a pretty sharp turn for us to find it straightaway. I'd expect at least one night on the mountain.”

Zol scoffs loudly. “I'm not spending a night on this bloody mountain if I can help it.”

“And I suppose you have some abominable tracking device—”

“Actually, I do,” he says. “This is why you ordinary Finders are nothing more than unemployed hippies. Talenteds have ways of dealing with this—satellite imagery, heat detection, access to recent sightings—all accessible using our objects. I don't need to bother with scanning the entire mountain range with a pair of hardware-store binoculars.”

I expect Kirsty to explode with rage, but she laughs. “You don't think there's a reason most Finders are ordinary, and if they're Talented then they don't use their magic? Don't think you can replace instincts, honed through experience, with synthetic ones, like you've done with potions and their ingredients.”

Zol isn't listening. He's removed his ring from around his neck, and it glows gently in his palm. I dig into my pocket and find my phone. Predictably, there's no signal up here. I look over at his ring. If he is able to access his satellite imagery and whatnot via magic, that would help us out a lot. Speed up the process. So despite what Kirsty says, I pray that it works.

Something works. After a few of his whispered words, a map of the mountain range flashes up before us, lit in eerie green glowing light. Zain pipes up: “Look, there we are.” He points to a flashing blue dot.

“All right, see? Now, I'll find out if there are any large animals around that could be abominables . . . it's not likely to be anything else, right?” He looks over at Jedda, who is staring wide-eyed at the map and slowly backing away. I wonder if he's ever seen magic like this before. But Kirsty is backing up too. She tilts her head urgently, signaling for me to move. I frown.

Suddenly there's a whoosh like air being sucked up by a vacuum, and I'm blinded by green light. I scream and drop to the ground. As my vision returns, I see Zol, his
face soot-black. He's coughing and covering his eyes. The map is gone; his ring is smoking. I look down and see that I'm covered in the same black stuff that Zol is. Magic soot.

“My ring!” Zol's face is white with panic. “What am I to do without it? We have to turn back. We
must
turn back.” He turns and walks in the other direction.

Kirsty laughs. She's untouched by the black residue. “Can't you survive without that object just for one day?”

“No,” says Zol. “Not a single moment. I've . . . I've never been without it.” He looks like a baby that's just lost its blanket. I forget how reliant Talenteds are on their objects.

“We can't go back now. It's the altitude,” says Kirsty. “It messes with your magic. Especially in the Wilds. That's why most of us ‘Finder hippies' are ordinary. I told you magic is unpredictable in these parts.”

“Well, at least one good thing came out of this,” Zain says, trying to calm his father. “At least we know where to find an abominable. I saw it before the map exploded. It's close. Just on the other side of that mountain pass.”