The White Rose (4 page)

Ash stuffs our nightclothes in the satchel and throws the strap over his chest. Lucien leads us out of the room and down the hall to another door marked
DANGER: RESTRICTED
. It isn’t locked, which I find strange, and Lucien opens it easily.

Immediately, I am assaulted by a wave of intense heat and the scent of something burning. The room is empty except for a cast-iron behemoth with a large door set in its center.

“This is what’s happening,” Lucien says. “Your absences have been discovered. For reasons I can only assume stem from self-preservation, the Duchess has not revealed that you, Violet, are missing. She has accused him”—he jerks his head in Ash’s direction—“of rape. A companion sleeping with any unsterilized female is a criminal act, but add to it that the female in question is a surrogate . . . well, the royalty are out for blood. All trains have been stopped in and out of the Jewel. Every available Regimental is combing the streets searching for him. In a few hours, his photograph will be posted in every circle of this city.”

I feel hollowed out. “So what do we do?”

Lucien turns the handle on the cast-iron door and opens it. A wall of brilliant yellow flame burns inside, making the room even hotter. “This incinerator leads directly
to the sewer system. You can at least make it to the Bank through the tunnels—the sewers for the lower circles aren’t connected to these. There’s a map in that bag. I’ve outlined your path in red. I’ll have an associate waiting for you in the Bank, and we’ll go from there.”

“How will I know who your associate is?”

“Ask them to show you the key.”

“What key?”

“You’ll know it when you see it.” He pauses. “You didn’t, by some small miracle, happen to bring the arcana with you?”

“I did!” I exclaim, putting a hand to my messy bun. “It’s in my hair.”

Lucien smiles, a real, warm smile. “Good girl. I can track you using that.”

“But . . .” I glance at the leaping flames. “How are we supposed to get down there?”

His smile fades. “You’ll have to use the Auguries to put out the fire.”

“What?” I stare at him, hoping that he’s joking. “How?”

“I don’t know. But you can do it.”

“Lucien, that’s not what the Auguries do. I mean, I wouldn’t even know where to start.”

“Listen to me.” Lucien puts both hands on my shoulders. “It
can
be done. It’s been done before.”

My mouth falls open. “What? By
who
?”

“That doesn’t matter right now. You have to do this. Otherwise . . .” He looks from me, to Raven, and finally, reluctantly, to Ash. “Otherwise, you’re all dead.”

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

I
WALK TO THE INCINERATOR, THE WAVES OF HEAT CARESSING
my face. Beads of sweat begin to form on my hairline and dew in my armpits. I feel a soft pressure on my wrist.

“Wait,” Ash says. He looks from me to Raven and back again. “These Auguries . . . are these the things that made Raven get sick?”

I nod, remembering how Raven vomited blood and effectively ended the Duchess’s luncheon.

“Will they make you sick?” he asks.

I hesitate. “Probably.” There’s no point in lying. “Yes.”

Ash looks like he’s about to protest, but I hold up a hand to silence him. I need to think.

I consider which of the three Auguries to use—Color, Shape, or Growth. Not Color, certainly—I don’t see how changing the incinerator’s color is going to help. Shape? Am I meant to change the incinerator’s shape somehow? No, it’s the flames that are the real problem. I think about Dr. Blythe, my doctor at the palace, and the oak tree in the Duchess’s garden. He’d taken me out to it to test my Auguries. He insisted I make the oak tree grow and I never thought I’d be able to, it was so massive and so old. But I did.

I take another step forward, the heat stinging my cheeks. I can’t touch the flames, but maybe touching the incinerator will be good enough. Its surface is hot, but not unbearable, the iron rough under my palm.

Once to see it as it is. Twice to see it in your mind. Thrice to bend it to your will.

But I have no image to bend this fire to. I envision a black space, empty and cold, but nothing happens. I don’t even feel the beginnings of an Augury.

“I can’t . . .” My throat tightens. “I don’t know what to do.”

An icy hand wraps around mine. Raven stands beside me, her face looking almost alive again.

“It has to die, Violet,” she says. Keeping our hands clasped, she places her other palm on the incinerator. “It’s not Growth. It’s Death.”

And then I see it, as clearly as if it were real. The flames growing weaker, smaller, like a mammoth pillow is pressing down on them, smothering them. I feel their resistant flickers, struggling for life, but the invisible pillow is stronger,
and they grow frailer and thinner until they are nothing but pathetic wisps of smoke.

Blood droplets trickle down my nose. My head throbs strangely, but not necessarily in a painful way. The place where my skin touches Raven’s is hot.

“Did we do that together?” I ask.

Raven retches, blood spattering the incinerator and streaming down her chin.

“Ash, give me my nightgown!” I cry. I keep one arm firmly around her waist, practically holding her up as she doubles over, coughing up more blood. One hand I keep on the incinerator. I have a terrible feeling that if I let go, the fire will come back.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” I say to her, over and over.

I turn to see Ash staring at the fireless incinerator with an expression of utter disbelief.

“Ash,” I say again, and he starts.

“How did you . . .”

“The nightgown, please.”

“You’re bleeding,” he says, hurrying forward with the satchel.

“I’m fine. It’s stopping already, it stops on its own,” I say, wiping it away with the sleeve of my sweater. “That wasn’t that bad. Help Raven.”

“It gets
worse
than this?” He’s looking at me like he’s never seen me before.

Raven’s coughing has stopped. Ash wipes her face with the nightgown.

“So much blood,” she mutters. “Always so much blood.”

“You have to get going,” Lucien interrupts. “Now.”

He tries to sound commanding, but his eyes are wide and his voice a bit too shaky.

“I’ve seen you before,” Raven says to him. “But I can’t remember if you’re real . . .” She presses the heels of her hands against her eyes. “Why is there always so much blood?”

Now that the fire is out, I can see a rectangular tunnel that slopes downward into blackness. “Ash, take Raven and go,” I say. “I’ll be right behind you.”

“I’m not going anywhere without you,” he says.

“Please,” I say. “I can’t let go of this or I think the fire will come back. You need to get down there safely. Make sure nothing happens to her.” I glance at Raven’s stomach, the tiny bump hidden by the sweater.

Ash’s fingertips brush down the side of my face. Then he climbs into the incinerator and helps Raven in after.

“Ash will take care of you,” I say to Raven. She looks at him and then at me but says nothing.

They slide down the tunnel, which has cooled considerably since the flames are gone, and out of sight.

I turn to Lucien. I can feel the deadened fire, like a heartbeat waiting to start.

“When will I see you again?” I whisper.

“Soon,” he says. “I promise.”

“I don’t know how to thank you,” I say.

He smiles. “Stay alive.”

I laugh, but it comes out like a hiccup. “All right.”

He kisses my forehead. “Go.”

I climb inside the incinerator, careful to keep my palm pressed hard against it. My shoes slip and skid on the
smooth surface and I grip the edge with my other hand. I take my last look at Lucien.

Then I descend into darkness.

T
HE TUNNEL IS STEEP.

I can’t see where I’m going, but I’m sliding very fast. Warm air blows strands of hair around my face. I manage to sit upright and keep one hand pressed against the smooth surface, even though it burns my skin, the metal racing beneath it so quickly. I’m tempted to call Ash’s name, but I’m afraid if I open my mouth I might throw up.

At some point, I pick up more speed. My heart kicks into a sprint.

I see a flicker of light ahead.

Then I’m falling.

For a weightless second, I’m suspended in the air, disoriented. As soon as my fingers leave the wall of the incinerator, flames erupt inside it, a brilliant burst of heat and light.

Then I crash to the ground, all the breath knocked out of me. My back arches, every cell in my body craving oxygen, then my lungs expand and I choke in my eagerness to breathe.

“Violet?” Ash’s arms wrap around my shoulders, cradling my back against his chest. He holds the flashlight in one hand—in the light of its beam, I see Raven’s feet.

My coughing subsides. “I’m okay,” I gasp.

He helps me up and we stare at the space above us, a gaping hole filled with flames.

“Lucien said there’s a map in there,” I say, pointing at the bag. Ash rummages through it, takes out a folded piece
of paper, and hands it to me. I study the blue lines that crisscross and interweave, creating a myriad of tunnels.

“I’ve seen this before,” I say. It’s the blueprint Lucien was looking at in the locked room in the Duchess’s library. That was the day he told me he could help me get out of the Jewel. “The whole time he must have known . . . he must have suspected . . .”

“What?” Ash says.

“That we might need a different escape plan. But how did he know about the incinerator? And that it empties out into these tunnels?”

“At the moment, I don’t think that matters.”

“I don’t like this place,” Raven says.

“Neither do I.” There’s a red line on the blueprint creating a trail through the tunnels. I turn the paper until I find our location. “We need to go . . . that way,” I say, pointing to the left.

Ash shines the flashlight down the tunnel and we move. But we haven’t gone more than a few steps when there’s a sickening crack under my foot.

“What was that?” I whisper. Ash grabs my elbow. The beam of his flashlight falls on a strange-looking cage protruding from the ground. Its bars are curved, blackened and burned, and it has no visible door.

“Why would someone throw a cage down here?” I whisper.

“Violet,” Ash says slowly, “I don’t think that’s a cage.”

As I stare at it, the image clicks into place. It’s a set of ribs.

Raven tugs my arm and I jump.

“Everyone is dead,” she says.

“Not us,” I say. “We’re alive.”

Raven looks at me as if the thought had never occurred to her. What did the Countess do to her? Who is this shell of the friend I used to know? I don’t want to think about why there were so many scars on her skull. I have to get her to safety. That’s all that matters.

Then I remember that she’s pregnant. Is there any safe place for Raven anymore?

She slips her hand into mine, and I push those thoughts away. Right here, right now, she is alive. And she needs me, like I needed her at Southgate. I remember the day when she helped me learn the first Augury, how she refused to leave my side until I was able to turn that stupid block from blue to yellow. I won’t leave her side now.

Ash stays right by my elbow, and the three of us make our way down the tunnel. I gnaw on my lower lip, wincing every time I hear the crack of bone beneath my feet. I wonder if this is where they incinerate the surrogates’ bodies, after their cold stay in those awful metal compartments. I could be walking on the surrogate of the Lady of the Glass. I could be walking on Dahlia.

It seems to take forever, but finally we make it to a point where several other tunnels branch off. The air is dank and smells like spoiled food, but I’m grateful to be on a solid surface again.

“Which way?” Ash asks.

My hands are shaking as I study the map. “Left,” I say, keeping my eyes trained on what’s ahead. I clutch Raven’s hand firmly in my grasp.

We start down a tunnel whose floor is covered with an
inch of what I can only imagine is the filthiest water in the Jewel. The beam of the flashlight reflects off its murky surface. No one speaks. Occasionally, I hear the tiny squeaking and scuttling of rats. Ash shines the light at intervals on the map to check we’re going the right way, but unfortunately, there aren’t any markers on it besides Lucien’s red line, so I find myself wondering whether it’s
this
left or
that
left, or which fork is which. Twice we take a wrong turn, find ourselves at a dead end, and have to double back.

“Do you think it’s this way?” I ask after studying the map for the sixth time and deciding on a different tunnel.

I can’t see Ash’s expression in the darkness. “I don’t know.”

“Do you smell that?” Raven says.

“The sewer?”

“No,” Raven replies, with an almost normal Raven-like air of impatience. “The
light
.”

I look toward where I think Ash’s face is with an incredulous expression.

“The light?” I ask hesitantly.

“Violet, don’t tell me you can’t smell it,” she says. “It’s so
clean
. Come on.”

I have no idea what she’s talking about. Who can smell light? But she tugs on my hand and starts to lead us down a different tunnel with more enthusiasm than she’s shown since she woke up. I barely have time to glance at the map before she’s taking a left and we’re at another dead end.

“Oh, Raven.” I sigh. “We’ve gone the wrong way.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Raven says, and again, I’m startled by how much she sounds like her old self. “Now we go up.”

Ash’s flashlight trails the wall, where a series of metal rungs form a ladder up into the darkness and out of sight. High above our heads, a tiny light twinkles, like a lonely star.

Without waiting for further discussion, Raven starts to climb.

“Wait!” I say, grabbing her ankles. “Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure,” she says. “You want to get out here, don’t you?”

“Yes, but . . . how do you know?”

“I know. I just do.”

Ash shines the beam of the flashlight up so I can see his face. His mouth is set, his eyes determined. He nods once.

I stuff the map into the satchel and follow Raven up the ladder. Ash brings up the rear, still holding the flashlight.

The metal rungs are endless. My arms begin to ache, the muscles in my thighs burn, and my stomach growls with hunger, but I force myself to keep moving, trying not to think about the long drop below me, getting progressively longer the higher we climb.

No one speaks. Slowly, the tiny star above us gets brighter. And bigger. It looks like a flower, petals of light emanating from one circular beam in its center.

Raven stops and I bang my head on the bottom of her shoe.

“This is it,” she says.

“What?” I ask, rubbing the top of my head.

“The end,” she says. Carefully, I lean over to one side, gripping the rungs tightly, and see a circle of metal with slits cut into it. Raven pokes her fingers through one of the petal-like holes.

“How do we open it?” she asks.

No one answers. I try to control my breathing, because the thought of climbing all the way back down this ladder to the sewers below is unacceptable.

“There has to be a way,” I say.

Raven’s fingers are still wriggling through the petal when the whole metal circle shifts to the left.

“Oh!” she cries, and her foot slips off its rung. I grab her shoe with one hand, my heart hammering in my throat.

The metal thing is lifted up and a brilliant circle of sunlight floods the tunnel. For a moment, I am completely blinded by it—my eyes water, my retinas are seared, and all I can see is white. Then a shadowy figure comes into view, looking down on us. I blink, and a face comes into focus.

“You made it,” Garnet says with a smile. “Welcome to the Bank.”