The Severed Tower (29 page)

“Pretty simple, really,” another said, the one on the left, the biggest of the three. His voice sounded like a bag of rocks. “Just have a question for you. Answer it in a way we like and you can go. Pretty much in the same shape you came in.”

As they spoke, Mira’s eyes scanned the locker, looking for anything that could help. The only artifacts here were the Emitters, and they weren’t much use. She’d left her bags in the infirmary with Zoey.

“Last time we saw you was a few months ago, before you got that price on your head.” It was the one with the glasses again. The third one so far hadn’t spoken. But he did have a knife in his hand, Mira saw. Her heart beat faster. “Something interesting about that, though. Back then, me and my friends were pretty sure there was something different about you.”

“That being … you weren’t
Heedless,
” said the big kid, and Mira felt a cold tingling of fear. She had an idea what their “question” was going to be, and there was little hope she could answer it in a way they wanted. It was now official—she was in trouble.

“You’re wrong,” Mira lied. “I’ve always been Heedless. If you were Gray Devils, you’d know that.”

The boy on the right, the quiet one, shook his head and finally spoke. “No. Pretty sure you weren’t.”

“Me, too,” the glasses said. “So here’s the question. How the hell did you do it?”

They started to move toward her. She took a step back.

“Tell us how you blocked the Tone,” the big one said. “Tell us how
we
can do it, too, and you can go.”

Mira swallowed. “What makes you think I could do it again?” She had to keep them talking.

“Heard rumors,” the quiet one told her. They kept inching closer. “About an artifact you were working on, an artifact to stop the Tone.”

“No,” Mira said, shaking her head. “It didn’t work. It won’t help you, I swear.”

The knife from the quiet kid flew through the air and stuck deep in the meat slab next to Mira. She jumped, barely resisted screaming.

“Lies? That makes us sad,” said the glasses. He drew his own knife. So did the big one. “Really sad. We can see your damn eyes from here, Toombs. Hell, we saw ’em when you strolled through the gate. We’re not idiots.”

Mira stepped back again … and felt the cold metal of the freezer wall behind her. There was nowhere to go. She watched the kids step closer, knives at the ready, but she didn’t say anything. She wouldn’t tell them about Zoey. She
wouldn’t.
No matter what they did.

“That’s fine, though,” said the big one. “You’ll tell us everything in the end. Everything under the sun, I promise.”

Another voice spoke over the hum of the Emitters. It wasn’t soft, but it wasn’t overbearing either. It was calm and certain, and something about it made the three big kids turn around. “I think the odds of that are rather low.”

Mira looked past the three big kids—and felt a tremendous surge of relief. Ben stood in the doorway, his eyes on the three boys. One hand rested in a pocket, the other was balancing his brass dice cube, juggling it between his knuckles, back and forth.

In a fight, it was clear he had no real chance. They were bigger than him and they were armed. The overconfident looks on their faces dropped all the same. Probably because they knew who he was. Everyone here did. Ben was the top-rated Freebooter in Midnight City, and you didn’t earn that spot without being formidable in some way.

“Fun’s over,” Ben told them. If he was intimidated by the three, he didn’t look it. “It might not seem like it, but clearing out of here is the best option you have.”

The three kids were still, their necks craned around to stare at Ben. The surprised, uncertain looks lasted a second longer—then the one with the glasses laughed out loud. The others followed.

“Brave talk for a skinny brainiac, outnumbered three-to-one. What? You hoping to outtalk us?
You’re
the one that oughta leave, before you get hurt.”

“It’s a mathematical certainty I won’t get hurt today. You three, however, are operating under a very different set of variables.” Ben studied each of the three in turn, then his gaze moved around the room, as if analyzing it. “The meat. The floor. And then … actually, I’m not really sure.”

Mira was just as confused as the three kids. Apparently, they’d had enough. “Kill this fool,” the one with the glasses ordered.

They all turned and advanced on Ben. He didn’t budge. But Mira saw something, something telling. As they approached, a sphere of yellow light crackled around him, then vanished.

The chains from one of the huge cuts of meat snapped apart, as if from the cold. A major coincidence, but a lucky one. The meat probably weighed several hundred pounds frozen, and when it fell, it slammed into the biggest kid, flattening him to the floor. He didn’t move.

The other two boys stepped away, startled, but then the action seemed to spur them. They charged toward Ben, their knives gleaming.

Ben just watched in curiosity.

The kid with the glasses slipped on a patch of ice as he ran, went down, and there was a sickening crack as his head hit the floor. He went limp.

The quiet kid skidded to a stop, stared in shock, and then looked at Ben.

Ben stared back calmly. “Think it through.”

The knife shook in the quiet kid’s hand. Then he made his choice. He charged one last time.

The Emitter in the corner of the room near the door exploded in a brilliant flash of green light, spraying shrapnel in an arc. Mira ducked, then heard a scream as the debris ripped into the kid. He spun and fell, and like the others, didn’t move.

Then everything was quiet. Mira opened her eyes and stared at Ben in shock. He studied the bodies of the three boys, one at a time.

“
Of course,
the Emitter. It adds up.” Ben frowned, a little frustrated, and looked up at Mira for the first time. There was no hint of shame or guilt on his face. “I’m still trying to figure out the underlying algorithm. It’s … very complex.”

Mira just stared at him, still stunned by everything that had happened.

“Come on,” Ben said as he moved for the door. “Let’s get out of the cold.”

Outside the locker, Ben leaned against a railing on the winding walkway. Mira saw that they were about a third of the way up the Spire. Above them, towers and platforms stretched and wrapped around the shimmering Gravity Well at crazy angles, but Mira just stared at Ben’s back, a terrible feeling growing inside her.

“I know what you want to say.” Ben stared to the north and the ever-darkening sky there.

“You sure as hell should.” Mira’s voice quivered. “You know how dangerous it is. You know what it does to everyone who—”

“Not to me, Mira. It won’t affect me like other people.” He didn’t look at her, just stood there with his hands in his pockets. Mira wondered which one held the Chance Generator. “I couldn’t
not
use it, not with what’s at stake, and I don’t think it was a coincidence it came to me. I can control it. I’m probably the only one in the world who can.”

“No.” Mira shut her eyes. “You can’t. Not even you, Ben. It makes you think that, but it’s an illusion.”

“You don’t understand. Its power is
growing,
Mira, the farther it goes into the Strange Lands. It stays on for days at a time now. I think once I reach the Core … it’ll be on permanently.”

Mira stared at his back. Her next words were barely a whisper. “What happened to your team, Ben?”

He stiffened, hesitated … and said nothing.

Anger replaced the horror Mira felt seconds earlier. “They’re dead, aren’t they? They died because you used the Chance Generator in the Strange Lands! It killed them in order to profit
you!
That thing is the reason they’re dead, and if you were thinking straight, you’d see that!”

Ben finally turned around and looked at Mira, and the sight of him up close was shocking.

He was pale, looked like he hadn’t slept in days. His eyes, where the Tone wasn’t crawling through them, were bloodshot and raw, and they locked onto hers. “I regret their loss. Never think I don’t. But their sacrifice is anything but meaningless. If I can reach the Tower, it’s worth it.”

Mira shook her head firmly. “Not like this it isn’t.”

“You just don’t see the math of it!”

“There’s no math here, Ben! The math is you don’t even know what the Severed Tower really is. No one does.” She took a step closer, glaring at him. “Do your men know, Ben? Do they know you’re using the abacus? Do they know
why
they’re dying one by one in random accidents?”

Ben looked away again.

Mira’s body shook with suppressed rage. She hated that artifact more than any other, more than even the horrible one she’d created all on her own. It had changed and corrupted one person she cared about, and now it was doing the same thing to another. But she would be damned if she’d let it happen.

“You have to stop, Ben. If you don’t … I’ll
tell
your men the truth. Tell them what you’ve done, and that the deaths of their friends are on
you.
I will, Ben, I swear to God I will, and your expedition will be
over.
Tell me you understand what I’m saying to you.”

As she spoke, Ben looked back at her, and something passed over his face. A look she had never seen from him, something so foreign in Ben Aubertine’s eyes it was chilling. She saw rage. Anger. Every black, vile emotion someone could feel drifted in and out of his eyes …

… and then vanished, replaced by his usual calm demeanor.

He looked at her oddly, studying her as if for the first time, as if he had woken from some sort of dream.

“Maybe you’re right,” he said, and she heard an audible shake in his voice. “Maybe … I can’t control it.”

Relief flooded through Mira. She moved closer to him. “You’re stronger than this. Holt gave up the artifact, and he had it longer than you. You can do it, too. I’ll help you.”

Ben stared at her, thoughts swirling in his head. “If I do, will you go to the Tower? Tonight? Will you leave with me?”

The question startled her. She felt a rush of confusion, mainly because her reaction now was so different from before. She thought of Holt, locked in the jail below with Ravan. There was no way for her to help him now. The truth was, if she wanted to get to the Tower, Ben was her best—maybe her only chance.

“Yes,” Mira told him. His face lit up in a smile filled with relief and he moved for her, but she stopped him. “Zoey has to come with us.”

His smile faded. “Mira…”

“It’s not negotiable. If you want me to come with you to the Tower, like we always talked about—Zoey has to come, too.”

He studied her a long time, weighing everything, measuring the risks and advantages, doing the math. Finally he nodded. “Okay.”

Mira threw her arms around him. He hugged her back.

“Meet me at the Anvil in an hour,” she whispered to him. “I have to destroy my artifact. We’ll destroy the Chance Generator, too, then leave.”

Ben was confused. “The Chance Generator is a fourth-ring artifact. So are the components in yours. We can’t destroy them here.”

“I think we’re
in
the fourth ring, Ben. Right now.” Ben raised an eyebrow at that. “I think the Strange Lands are
growing,
and I think I know why. I also think it’s going to get worse.”

Mira watched the old look of curiosity appear, the one he wore when he found something new to solve, something to figure out and break down and understand. It was good to see it.

“I’ll tell you at the Anvil,” she said. “I’ll tell you everything. Okay?”

Ben nodded. When they parted, Mira raced back down the walkway towards the infirmary to get her things. She felt light on her feet, and it wasn’t just the low gravity of the Spire. Ben would lead now, she knew. Ben would shoulder the weight of the responsibility she had been carrying, he would take the fear and the worry on himself. Everything would be fine now.

She laughed as she ran, circling the massive column of light. She didn’t even notice the strange, fragmented hissing sound filling the air from the Gravity Well, or that it seemed worse—
much worse,
than before.

28.
SACROSANCT

THE OLD SHERIFF’S OFFICE
was still in good condition, probably a result of both the Strange Lands’ slowing of time and the fact that Polestar clearly used it often as a brig. The entire length of the back wall was divided into five cells, with cast-iron bars on one side and the brick wall of the building on the other.

Outside the cells, the old desks stood collecting dust. Holt could see their things lying well out of reach. Their packs and guns, including his own, and the big, wooden crate that Ravan’s men had been carrying this whole time.

When they’d arrived, there had only been one other person in the cells, the rest were empty. Now each held four or five Menagerie apiece, and Holt was in the next-to-last one, along with Ravan and two of her men.

The lone figure in the cell next to them sat in a corner covered in shadows, but it didn’t look like he cared much whether he had company or not. He never even looked in their direction.

Holt sat with his back against the brick wall, staring up at the skylight at the top of the ceiling, two dozen feet above them and out of reach. It flashed occasionally in different colors, and it was always followed by the rolling, fragmented thunder from outside. That crazy storm was still out there, but it sounded a little farther away now.

Ravan paced back and forth, staring past the bars. When they’d first arrived, she’d tested them, tried to find weaknesses, looked at the locks, but there was nothing she could do. They were locked up good and tight, but still she paced back and forth like a caged tiger.

“Sit down, you’re making me queasy,” Holt told her without taking his eyes off the flashing skylight.

“There’s always a way out,” she replied.
“Always.”

“You never liked being locked up. Only thing I ever saw get to you.”

“Drives me crazy.” She kicked the door again. It didn’t budge. “Makes me want to tear my eyes out.”