The Severed Tower (30 page)

“I’d prefer you didn’t,” Holt replied pointedly. “Just try to relax. They’ll let us loose once the storms break up. They just don’t want you in the city.”

She turned and looked at him. “They don’t want
us
in the city, you mean.”

She was right. He was in the same cell as them, wasn’t he? He wondered what Mira was doing, wondered if Zoey was okay. She’d looked bad when he’d been taken away.

“What are you doing here, Holt?” Ravan asked. She was staring at him in genuine confusion. “It has to do with that kid, doesn’t it? It’s easy to figure. You don’t bring a little girl to a place like this, but that’s what you’re doing, so it has to involve her. She’s the only thing that doesn’t fit.”

“It’s … complicated.”

“It must be,” Ravan replied. “Holt Hawkins
hates
artifacts. Going into the Strange Lands would be the last thing he’d ever do.”

Holt studied her. She wanted to know the truth. But how did he tell her? “I’m just not sure it’s something you would believe.”

Pain flashed in Ravan’s eyes again. “Never even crosses your mind, does it? That I might surprise you? If you ever took the time to try, maybe you’d find I’m more than what you think.”

“Ravan, I didn’t mean—”

“Just forget it,” she said, and turned back around.

Watching her, it occurred to him that he had probably hurt Ravan more than anyone else he’d ever known. And he seemed to do it, over and over again. Maybe it was because in his mind, Ravan was indestructible; she could take anything the world dished out, and so he subconsciously gave himself license to disregard her feelings. Yet regardless of the image she presented, Ravan was human, she felt pain. And she deserved better.

Still, Zoey’s secret was a dangerous one, and the fewer people who knew it, the better. She could stop the Tone, and he didn’t like the idea of the Menagerie pirates around them learning it. Who knew what they were likely to do if they did. Then again, he’d probably never see Mira and Zoey again, or even Max. He was alone now.

Holt looked back up at Ravan. “Me being here isn’t any more surprising than
you
being here. Far as I remember, Tiberius was never interested in the Strange Lands.”

Ravan laughed. “Before
you,
you mean.”

Holt stared at her, confused. “Me?”

“After Archer died, Tiberius had to find another way to preserve his legacy,” Ravan continued, still not looking at him. “And there’s only one other option, isn’t there?”

The answer occurred to Holt immediately. “Avril,” he said. Ravan didn’t answer him, but she didn’t need to. It was the only thing that made sense. “You’re here to
find
her?”

“Already found her,” Ravan said. “Saw her a few days ago, least I think I did. She’s with the White Helix.”

The White Helix? If Ravan was here for them, Tiberius had basically sent her on a suicide mission. That didn’t make sense, though. Ravan was one of Tiberius’s best leaders, and he was a master strategist. He’d never risk her life lightly, even if it meant getting Avril back. Then again, he was also beyond ruthless.

“From what I’ve heard, the White Helix don’t strike me like the kind of group who hands over one of their own,” Holt said. “Even if she
is
the daughter of Tiberius Marseille.”

“Probably not. But they would
trade
for her.”

Instinctively, Holt looked past Ravan, past the bars, to where the Polestar guards had put their gear. Sitting there among it all was the big crate Ravan’s men had been lugging with them this entire time.

“Any arrangements you have with the White Helix are sacrosanct,” a disapproving voice interrupted them. The figure in the other cell rose to his feet and moved toward Holt and Ravan with the controlled grace of someone used to doing far more agile things than simply walking. “They shouldn’t be discussed openly.”

Holt could see him clearly now—black and gray clothing, boots, cargo pants, tucked-in shirt, a vest with pockets, utility belts. A boy, eighteen maybe, the Tone creeping through his eyes.

Ravan studied the boy warily. “Him, I trust. Even if he doesn’t trust me.” Holt guessed he deserved that last bit. “But
you
 … I don’t know at all.”

The boy leaned casually against the bars. “I was sent as your escort to Sanctum. My name is Chase.”

“You’re from the White Helix?” Holt asked in surprise. Chase nodded once.

Ravan frowned. “Well that’s just great, isn’t it? Hell of an escort, if you’re gonna be locked up in the same damn jail we are.”

Chase smiled. “I might be in the same jail, but I’m not locked up. When the time is right, we’ll leave for Sanctum.”

Holt studied the boy and his calm, dangerous demeanor. “Are you saying you got caught on purpose—to meet the Menagerie here?”

The kid shrugged. “You were told you would be met at Polestar, weren’t you? Freebooters and Helix have no love for each other, and finding one alone in the landscape would be irresistible. They would capture him and bring him exactly where he needed to be. It’s always easier to let the water carry you toward your goal, rather than swim against a current.”

Holt looked at the bruises and cuts on his face. The guards obviously hadn’t been gentle with him. If he considered that the “easy” route, Holt hated to see see a tough one.

“Fine,” Ravan said in annoyance. The boy’s entrance had had an effect, but she was growing less impressed now. “When will this ‘right time’ be?”

The Helix shrugged and moved back to his dark corner. “No way to know, but it will come.” He sank down into the shadows again and blended in with them. “The Tower wills it.”

Holt and Ravan looked at each other skeptically.

29.
NOTHING STAYS THE SAME

MIRA STOOD AT THE TOP
of the Spire—or, at least what was
now
the top. Above her, the twisted, broken poles and supports that used to hold the Orb jutted outward where it had ripped loose a day ago. It didn’t seem real, staring at the blank air where the massive sphere should be.

Below her the city twinkled the same as always, buildings and walkways and platforms winding downward toward the ground, around the massive column of bright, flickering energy. Look down and things appeared normal. Look up … and you knew the truth.

She was here for a reason, she reminded herself. She was at the city’s Anvil.

An Anvil was a major artifact that facilitated the destruction of other artifacts, and could only be used in the Strange Lands. Artifacts could only be destroyed in the ring where they were created, or, in the case of a combination, only in the ring of their most powerful component. As a result, there were several Anvils in every ring, most set up along the main routes for easy access. After all, you didn’t want to travel all the way to Polestar to destroy a first-ring combination.

Polestar’s Anvil stood on an open-air platform of polished wood and steel, surrounded by the various buildings of the city’s temporary housing—small huts built on top of each other a thousand feet above the ground, with ladders and bridges connecting them for visiting Freebooters. The platform itself stretched diagonally a hundred feet away from the main support structure, balanced on nothing more than a few thin, metal pipes, something that would have been impossible in normal gravity. The whole thing looked like it should rip loose and fall, but it didn’t.

Mira looked at the artifact in front of her. An Anvil was just that, an old anvil from a blacksmith’s forge. Metallic shelves sat next to this one, holding a variety of antique mallets. Any one of them would do the job. Place an artifact on the Anvil, take a mallet and slam it down. Any artifact or combination would shatter into pieces, provided they were in the right ring.

Mira set her packs and Lexicon on the platform, then pulled out her artifact combination, with the old pocket watch in the center. She set it on the black, scarred surface of the Anvil and stared at it, a complicated mix of emotions washing over her. She felt nothing but horror and regret when she looked at it now. In a way, this was the culmination of a long journey, one set in motion months ago. When she destroyed her artifact, it would be yet another turning point.

“Mira,” a voice said behind her. Ben stood at the edge of the platform where the walkway connected to it. In his hand was the Chance Generator.

Ben looked even more tired than before. Pale and weak. She wondered if
he
would even recognize himself. Once he destroyed that artifact, he would be okay, she told herself. He had to be. She
needed
him to be.

“I’m glad you came,” she said.

Ben stared back at her. “Are you … really sure about this?”

Mira nodded. “Any advantage that thing gives you is offset by what it takes. It’s not worth the price. I’ve lost a lot to it already, and so have you, you just don’t see it yet. I need you to trust me, Ben.”

“I do trust you. You always see things so clearly.” Ben moved toward her wearily. “It’s one reason … why I love you, Mira.”

Mira froze at the words. In all their time together, after all they had been through, he had never said those words to her.

She didn’t know what to say. “Ben…”

He moved closer. His hands gently pulled the necklaces from her shirt. His fingers divided them, one after the other, until they found the one he was looking for. The small pair of brass dice.

“Do you remember the night I gave you this?” he asked her.

Mira nodded.

“Do you remember what I told you when I did?”

“Yes.”

His eyes looked up from the necklace into hers. “I know this is going to seem like a betrayal, and like a contradiction to everything I told you then—but it isn’t. I promise.”

She studied him in confusion. What did he mean by—

Mira flinched as Ben snapped another necklace off her neck. The Gravity Void combination she always wore for emergencies. Before she could react, he took a step back—and threw it onto the platform at her feet.

The glass vial on the combination shattered. There was a flash and a hum—and then Mira gasped as she was yanked up into the air in a blur of ascending light particles, spinning helplessly in a sphere of zero gravity.

“Ben!” she yelled, trying to reach something, but there was nothing she could grab, she just floated helplessly. The Anvil and its shelves were out of reach. She was trapped. “What are you
doing?
” she exclaimed, but a part of her already knew.

Ben stared up at her sadly and stuffed the Chance Generator in his pocket. “The Tower is too important. I tried to explain it to you, but you wouldn’t see.”

“Ben, don’t do this,” Mira begged him. “Your entire team will die.
You
will die. This isn’t—”

“I know it seems horrible to rationalize away their deaths, but the Chance Generator will guarantee I reach the Tower. And I
have
to reach it. Everything depends on it.”

Mira spun helplessly in the Void. She watched Ben kneel down to her pack and remove something from it. When she saw what it was her heart sank. Her glass cylinder of plutonium, with the Dampener still attached to its surface. The one she’d been carrying all this time, the one she’d risked everything for, the one she needed if she was going to fulfill her promise to Zoey.

He put the plutonium in his own pack and looked back at her. His face was full of more emotion than she had ever seen on it. “This comes the closest of anything in my life to hurting me, knowing you will never understand why I’m doing this. Knowing you’ll never forgive me. It hurts more because, once I change everything, this reality will be gone. It will be replaced with how it should have been, a world without the Assembly. And I’ll never get a chance to make it up to you. Because we’ll never have met.”

“Ben, no!” she yelled. “I can’t get Zoey inside the Tower without the plutonium!”

“That’s the point, Mira. You won’t have a reason to follow me now. I’m saving you this way. You can’t make it to the Tower on your own, you know that. If you’re honest, a part of you is relieved you no longer have to try.”

“Ben, please don’t!” she begged, struggling in the Void. “
Zoey
is the one who’s supposed to change everything. Not
you!
”

Ben didn’t answer, he just looked up to the sky above them. “I wish I could see the Scorpion, but … I can’t. I think it’s something only you can do.” He looked back at her. “I meant what I said before. I love you, Mira.” Then he turned and disappeared down the ramp back into the Spire.

“
Ben!
” Mira yelled mournfully, but there was nothing she could do. The plutonium was gone and so was Ben.

*   *   *

ZOEY STOOD AT THE
top of the dam once more, staring down at the flood plain below. The shadows writhed there as before, but there were more of them this time. Thousands instead of hundreds, rising and boiling up out of the still water and reaching for her.

Why?
The suggestion came, projected upward, and this time it was so strong it filled her mind with pain and darkness.

Why?

The land wasn’t a still photograph anymore, it was all moving—only it moved quicker than it should, as though time were advancing faster and faster. Only the shadows seemed to move in normal time.

“Wake up, Zoey.” A voice filled her mind. Her own voice, tiny and low. “Balance must be restored.”

Everything sped up, faster and faster. The flood plain dried up, the trees and grass wilted to charred blackness, the dam cracked and crumbled and fell apart into dust. The world went a searing shade of white …

“Wake up!”

She did … and everything flashed away.

*   *   *

ZOEY BLINKED GROGGILY AS
she awoke in a strange place that wasn’t where she remembered being. She wasn’t on the hill anymore, watching the frightening storm. She was in a room full of beds and cabinets and wavering opalescent light that rained down from the ceiling, and no one else was there. Except the Max. He was underneath her, staring up with worried eyes. Zoey smiled and rubbed his ears.