The Dark Light (34 page)

“You speak as an American, Poppy Fellows.”

Sweat broke out on my palms. Talking to the guard had been tough, but this was unreal. I couldn’t take my eyes off him.

“I’m a Runner,” I said, determined, yet failing, to keep my voice calm. “I spend a lot of time on the Other Side.”

“As do I,” he replied, seemingly oblivious to everyone around us. “Poppy, you are a young and pretty Runner. What is your trade?”

He had to ask. Reluctantly, I pulled my phone from my jacket pocket, again conscious of the Solenetta heavy beneath my shirt. “I’ve got this.” I held out the phone. “It doesn’t work.”

Elias’s gaze never once left my face as he took the phone, flipped it open, and ran his finger across the buttons. The keypad and display lit up. “And now it does,” he said.

He began to pace and I felt all of us—me included—waiting on his next word. My runaway heart pounded in my ears.

“You remind me of someone,” he said, and stopped in front of me. “Like the dark shade of a little light I have found.” His mismatched eyes narrowed. Long fingers reached for a lock of my hair. “I have ways of making people speak the truth, Poppy,” he warned.

He stood as close to me as Sol had been in the alley that morning, but now he turned, his arms wide to the crowd, bringing our audience back into the exchange.

Scarcely able to believe I was still standing, I struggled to
hold my ground. “I’m telling you the truth,” I stated.

“That you accidently released a decimator in Maslian’s Square?” He spun back to me. “That’s what they told me. It is difficult to release a decimator by accident,” he added, his tone suddenly chirpy and light. “You have to squeeze them, you see, Poppy.” He clasped his hands tightly together. “You have to
mean
it.”

Though his lips were curled into a smile, there was no friendliness in his eyes.

“Poppy, you’re going to the pit,” he said, and leaned in as if we shared a secret. “While you’re there, I want you to think hard about this tale of yours. Not least an explanation for this.”

He handed me my phone, the screen still brightly lit. Willie and I grinned back, red-faced, elated in our Crownsville High volleyball uniforms, the court and net visible in the background. I looked back at the Suzerain.

“Think hard, Poppy,” he whispered. “I look forward to your revised tale.” He stepped away. “Take her down!”

I moved, following a shove from the guards. Gradually the concourse returned to life. I felt eyes upon me, not least the Suzerain’s. He knew. He’d seen the wallpaper on my phone’s display. Why would a Runner be playing high school volleyball?

I took one look back before we left the room. Far across the concourse, a new group of guards entered the Velanhall.
Between them hurried a small, fat figure. My already quivering heart picked up its beat. However bad my situation was, it could soon get worse.

It was Malone.

* * *

The guards escorted me through a dingy tunnel deep beneath the Velanhall. Torches cast flickering amber light on the stone walls. The scent of earth and moisture rose. I constantly checked over my shoulder, certain I’d catch the Suzerain striding down the tunnel with a furious Malone on his heels.

“Face forward,” snapped one of the guards, offering me another shove.

My hands balled into fists. I swore I was going to punch him if he touched me again.

The passage ended at a square antechamber. Two sentinels stood guard at a wall of thick black bars. Light from the chamber’s torches barely penetrated the gloom beyond, but in what dim light there was, I could see the jagged walls of a rock cavern. There was an icy draft. Though I was glad I wore my jacket, I still shuddered.

One of the sentinels unlocked the bars and a guard ushered me inside. “Get comfortable, Poppy Fellows,” he said. “And don’t forget the Suzerain’s advice. I’d have a long think about what you were really trying to do with that decimator.”

I stepped through without comment, determined not to flinch when the bars slammed behind me. I failed.

A vast cavern rose into blackness, a kind of empty nothingness, the true scale of which I could only imagine. Moisture dripped from above and collected in pools at my feet. The ground sloped gently down.

I took a final look behind me. The guards had gone, but one of the sentinels watched from the bars.

“Sleep tight,” it growled.

I walked slowly through the corridor of blackness. Far ahead, it was impossible to tell how far, a light flickered, but reaching it meant navigating the blind patch around me. I shuffled to the cavern wall and pressed a hand against the damp rock. With tiny steps, I forged my way through the darkness.

Colder drafts brushed past my skin. I imagined visage demons and shadow imps waiting in the blackness. Winged harpies, like the ones at my father’s house, surely hovered above. One wrong step and they’d swoop down, opening my throat with their razor-sharp claws—

A hand grabbed my arm. I screamed from the pit of my gut.

“Mia!”

Gripped with terror, I lashed out at the arm around me. Then my brain latched on to the voice. Uncertainty and then relief hit.

“Sol?”

His voice rang again. “It’s me. Stay still.” His hand touched my shoulder. “Hold on to me. There’s another torch ahead.”

I clutched Sol’s hand as he led me through the darkness and into the light. A torch, almost burned out, hung from the wall. As soon as Sol’s face appeared in the pale glow, I launched myself into his arms. “Thank God,” I gasped, and clung on to his shoulders, my face buried in his neck. His scent washed over me. I held it deep in my lungs, a magical elixir offering me strength. It was him. It was really him. I reluctantly pulled away. “What happened to you?”

“I got arrested for attacking the sentinels,” he replied, reaching for my hands. “Mia, why are you here?”

I told him what had happened.

“A
decimator
?” he said, once I’d finished.

“I
know
,” I replied. “They’d almost captured Delane; I couldn’t think what else to do.”

I couldn’t tell if he was secretly impressed or if he simply despaired that I’d caused so much trouble. I didn’t care. He was here with me. That was all that mattered.

“Thank God you’re here,” I said. “The Suzerain just questioned me himself! I told him it was an accident, but I know he didn’t buy it.” I handed him the phone. “He just touched it and it came on. Look at the photograph. Does that look like a Runner to you?”

Our backs to the distant guardroom, Sol stared at picture.

“This is bad,” he said.

“I’m pretty sure they think I was aiming for him.”

“Very bad.”

“And don’t forget—” I yanked down my collar and flashed him the Solenetta.

His shoulders sagged as soon as he saw it. “We’ve got to get you out of here,” he said.

“What about you? You’re in big trouble if he recognizes you.”

“He won’t.”

“Don’t be so sure. There’s something about him, Sol. When he was talking to me, it was like he knew
everything
. Or that I was ready to tell him everything. What if they search you? What if they see the Lunestral? I’d say the king’s son is a pretty big prize. And it gets worse.” I again checked for the guards. “Malone’s here. And he looked pissed. If the guards hadn’t dragged me down here, he would have seen me.”

Sol shook his head. “Even if Malone tells the Suzerain what happened, there’s no reason for them to link it to you.”

“What, not link it to the girl they think tried to assassinate the Suzerain? And what about you? Arrested for attacking sentinels on Malone’s doorstep! Even if they don’t link
us
, they’re going to tear this city apart looking for the Solenetta.”

“Which will keep them distracted.”

“For how long?” I asked. “Sol, Elias told me to ‘think over my story.’ He said something about dark shades and a little light he’d found. I think he meant Jay.”

Sol paused, thinking over my words. “There’s no way he can know you and Jay are connected,” he said.

“I would have agreed before,” I replied. “Not now. He’s gonna come back for me, Sol, and I don’t think Poppy the Runner is going to hold up for long. With some idiot at the gate, maybe. But this guy? I’ve got a bad feeling, Sol. When Elias speaks to Malone he’s going to know it was me. We know what he’s capable of. We know what he did to my mother.”

I gestured to the phone. “I’m not kidding; he just touched it, Sol, and it came back on! How does a person do that? This guy’s not using magic orbs—the magic is coming from him!”

“Have you tried to use it?” asked Sol, and handed back my phone.

I pressed the call button and then held it to my ear. “No signal. And anyway. Who would I call? Willie? She’s bailed me out of a few tough spots, but this is a little too much to ask.” I flipped it shut and then wedged the phone back into my pocket.

“I don’t think it’s as bad as you say,” said Sol. “Not yet. The best case is that they let us stew for a while and then release us.”

“And if they don’t?”

He didn’t reply.

I glanced around, but other than darkness, rock, and the spot of light at the guard station, there wasn’t much to see. “There’s got to be a way out of here.”

“I’ve looked,” said Sol. “This place is huge.”

“There has to be a way. We’ll split up. We’ll keep looking.”

“All right.” He reached for the torch on the wall. “Take this. And be careful.”

“You’ll need one too.”

Sol peered into the darkness, the gold in his eyes catching the torch’s flame. “I’ll be fine,” he said.

“What, so you can see in the dark?”

“Better than most.”

As soon as we set off, I realized that Sol’s description had been an understatement. The place was huge multiplied by ten. The deeper into the pit we walked, the more chambers and passages opened on either side.

“I’m going on ahead,” said Sol. “You check these caverns. Head back when you’re done. I’ll find you from the light.”

Torch hot in my hand, I headed across the cave to a narrow passage forged through the rock. Water dripped until soon my hair and shoulders grew damp and the torch smoked from the moisture. Like a mythological labyrinth, the passage twisted and turned. Long dead torches occasionally appeared, but most were so damp they wouldn’t light when I offered
them a flame. Openings appeared here and there. All led nowhere.

I don’t know how far I’d gone when the passage veered into a larger chamber. I held the torch high and checked for an opening or shaft. Nothing. But it was drafty—the breeze had to be coming from somewhere. I pushed on, checking the shallow pools for a sign of flowing water.

I stopped.

At first, I thought it was a gutterscamp curled up against the rock. But as I pointed the torch, I knew right away that it was something else. Wide, frightened eyes peered out from beneath a brown mop of hair. Tears had cleaned paths through the grime on his cheeks. I saw the Ridge. I saw Crownsville. I saw the window booth at Mickey’s piled high with fried chicken.

“Alex?” I gasped.
“Alex Dash?”

S
eeing Alex, it was as if the time I’d spent in Brakaland had suddenly vanished. Alex meant Crownsville, where life made some kind of sense and I wasn’t the confused and uncertain shadow of myself that I’d become since arriving in Brakaland. The past days had been so crazy I’d never considered how amazing it would feel to see someone from home. Two worlds collided. Alex was someone
I
knew—and he was someone who knew Jay.

I wedged the torch into a gap in the rock and then crouched in front of him. “Alex, it’s me,” I said, hand on my chest. “It’s Mia. Mia Stone. From Mickey’s.”

He was filthy, his eyes wide and white amid the grime.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

“I’m stuck here too.”

He blinked a couple of times as if to clear his eyes. “Is my mom here?”

I reached for his hand. “No,” I said, and gave it a squeeze. “But you’re gonna see her real soon. I promise.”

His sneakers slipped on the rocks as he struggled to rise. His jeans were damp, his T-shirt torn. It was hard not to imagine what he’d been through.

“My brother, Jay,” I said, my voice echoing down the nearby passage. “Jay Stone, from your class. Is he here?”

“He was,” said Alex. He still looked at me as if he couldn’t quite believe what he saw. “Those big muscle guys? He kicked one of them. Then they took him and the others.”

Jay was alive!
I tried not to smile, picturing Spud giving a sentinel a firm boot to the shin. That was Jay, all right.

“When did they take them?” I asked, shuffling closer.

Alex shrugged.

“Do you know
where
they took them?”

“I think to the hill,” said Alex.

I gestured that I didn’t understand.

“It’s where they took me,” he said. “There was a camp and lots of the big guards. They made me hold a stone.”

A solen. It had to be.

“Was it like this?” I asked, and showed him the Solenetta.

Alex’s eyes brightened. “That’s it! But only one. And not as big. They made us hold it, and then they brought us back here.”

And they’d taken Jay there too. They were about to be disappointed again.

I took another look at Alex’s disheveled appearance. “Alex, how did you get here?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I was chasing Buster and then I saw . . .” His eyes glazed.

“Saw what?”

“Grandpa Dash. But Grandpa Dash is dead. Or maybe—am I dead too?”

“No,” I said, pulling him in for a hug. This wasn’t the time for a lesson on visage demons. “And neither am I. You’ve been kidnapped, Alex. But we’re gonna get you home. The other boys too.” I reached for the torch and took his hand. Alex pulled back.

“You have to take Benny,” he said.

Confused, I shook my head.

“Benny,” he said. “They didn’t come for him this time.” He turned for the back of the cave.

I held up the torch and followed.

“Benny doesn’t come out much,” said Alex, as he led me into a narrow passage. “He hides back here. But they find you. You can’t hide forever in this place.”