I TRY TO STAND, to run out into the hall before whoever was reading my email has time to vanish, but I must be getting sick. The shelves rock like boats, and darkness keeps waving in my eyes.
There’s a searing pain on the side of my neck. I start to understand: somebody did something to me. I touch the spot and feel a rising welt, like a burn. I find myself clutching the handle on the library door to keep myself upright, and then I see it on the gray carpet: a thin pink worm, phasing in and out of focus. One of the short, poisonous tentacles from Indigo’s stomach—somebody took it and used it as a weapon. From what Ophelia told me, I’ll be unconscious very soon.
I expect the door to be locked, but then the handle turns and I’m through, standing unsteadily in the hallway. It feels like the floor has melted beneath me.
I see the red glow driving at me in the dimness, but I’m too weak to get away. There are at least three of them coming up behind me, yanking my arms back. I feel rough hands pinning my wrists together. I think I might fall.
“I didn’t do anything,” I say. It comes out slurred. “I didn’t even know what he wanted. Not until right now.”
“Of course I was concerned once I realized whose daughter she was. I simply couldn’t bring myself to accept that anyone would exploit his own child that way. It’s barbaric.” That’s Ms. Stuart’s voice, but she’s not talking to me. “Ophelia is searching their room.”
“He’s coming here,” Gabriel says. “That’s what the last message said. It was sent an hour ago, so he could be here anytime.”
“Then prepare yourself. You know what you have to say.”
What’s that supposed to mean? I try to ask. I don’t hear my voice at all anymore.
“What if he doesn’t believe me?”
“In all probability, he won’t. No one doubts Dr. Lahey’s intelligence. Tell him anyway, and be ready to repeat the story as often as necessary. You’ll have to talk to the police as well.”
“Where’s Rowan? He won’t want to believe this.”
“I’m well aware of that. I’ll have him read the emails for himself. And the letter, assuming Ophelia finds it.”
I’m being hustled along the hall now, or maybe carried. I don’t think I feel the floor. Rowan, I try to say, I didn’t do it! I wouldn’t spy on you! But then I realize vaguely that he’s not even here.
They drop me in a windowless room a lot like the supply closet that Marley’s been using as a bedroom. I hear the door lock behind me. My legs slide out from under me, and I find myself sitting on the floor with my back to the wall, staring at the brown lines crossing through the yellow linoleum.
Do I pass out? That’s probably what it would look like, but to me it feels like I just disappear.
∗ ∗ ∗
“You can’t just lock her up! You can’t! There’s no proof she even did anything!” Rowan is screaming his head off. He sounds so desperate that my heart reaches for him through the wall. The doorknob rattles like he just grabbed for it, and then there’s a scuffling sound as someone pulls him back. In the crack under the door I can just see the slight red cast by his warmth. His warmth. Rowan.
I almost scream for him, but I have the sense to stop myself in time. It’s more important to listen. It’s way better if they think I’m still unconscious. How long has it been?
“Rowan, Rowan, Rowan. Listen to me. There’s no choice. Ada knows everything. She knows about the algae. She knows we’ve been trying to reengineer it so it doesn’t die as soon as it leaves the coastal waters right around Long Island. If only Dr. Jacoway still had his old brilliance, we’d be so much further, but . . . I admire Ada’s character as much as you do, Rowan. She’s a brave girl. But she’s working against us, and we cannot allow her to ruin our efforts. I need you to accept that.” It’s Ms. Stuart. Will he believe her?
“She wouldn’t do that. She cares too much—about us.”
“Rowan, think about it. Ada had arranged to check her email with Ophelia beside her. For moral support, supposedly. Clearly she was rushing to delete all the incriminating emails before that could happen, so Ophelia would only see the unopened messages from her old friends. What more proof do we need?”
It sounds like Rowan is crying, but in a muffled way, so maybe she’s holding him. He’ll have her coarse dress against his fur, the stink of her sweat in his nose.
“She’s been coming out and saying—all kinds of things, that she thinks kimes are a big threat and that people are right to be scared of us. She told Ophelia she’d feel terrible if her parents’ new baby was one of us. She knew how much it bothered us, too, when she kept saying stuff like that. If Ada were spying, she would have told us whatever we wanted to hear.”
Rowan’s still standing up for me, but he’s not screaming anymore. He’s starting to break down instead, and his voice is getting weaker. Ms. Stuart is winning.
“Oh—I’m sure that once Ada got to know everyone here, she felt deeply guilty about what her father had asked her to do. I don’t think she lacks heart, Rowan. She’s been saying more than she should in an effort to justify herself. To talk herself into betraying all of us. It’s truly appalling that her father put her in this position, where she was bound to be torn by conflicting loyalties.”
“You told him Ada is dead. You and Gabriel—it’s horrible.”
“Frankly, Rowan, I think he deserves to live with the consequences of his actions. He should have thought about that before he sent his twelve-year-old daughter in here as a spy.”
Dead. What did I expect them to tell him? I bet they used Gabriel’s old story about that underground crevice. They probably said I fell into the dark and there was no way to reach my body.
And if he believes them, then no one will ever come to get me out of here.
“Let her out. I’ll watch her. I’ll make sure she doesn’t cause any problems, Ms. Stuart. I promise.”
“No. Rowan, I never thought I would say this, but I don’t entirely trust you. Not where Ada is concerned.”
I still feel sick and bleary; the toxins from little Indigo’s tentacle must be pretty strong. Everything they’re saying beats at my brain, and I struggle to understand it. So parasitic algae do cause Chimera Syndrome, okay—I basically knew that. But didn’t Ms. Stuart just say that the algae can’t live in the water away from Long Island? Why wouldn’t they live just as well anywhere?
I drift off again, and all I see is moving blue: blue clouds and blue cascades, numbers and staircases and brilliant cobalt chandeliers. The blue must be with me, hugging my eyes as I slide in and out of sleep. And blue words, bright and so delicate they’ll shatter if I try to catch hold of them: something about a world that might be breaking. Something about new life in new shapes flowering in the ruins, blue running through our veins like luminous sap, charging us, making us stretch and grow. Us, the chimeras. Is that why the blue made us? Life is glowing, I try to say, but my voice seems far away from me. Life is what glows when you think it’s all gone dark.
At one point I wake up and find dinner next to me: roast chicken and little buttered potatoes and chocolate chip cookies. A big glass of milk. It’s fancier than the food we usually get; maybe somebody out there feels bad about how they’re treating me. I manage to sit up on a crate, though my head still feels wobbly, and start to eat with the dish perched on my knees. It’s barely warm. I have no idea how long I’ve been in here. A loud metal clanging sounds in the distance; for a long, confused moment, I think it might be some bizarre clock, chiming the hours. Whatever it is, I think I’ve heard it before.
“Hello?” I call, raising my voice to be heard over the clashing sound. It rakes, bangs, squeals. Why won’t it stop? “Hello? Is anyone there?”
No reply. I get off the crate and kneel down to peer through the crack below the door. The hallway is dimly lit, and there’s no haze of red warmth for as far as I can see, in any direction. Apart from the distant ruckus, it seems weirdly silent.
“Hello?”
My brain is just starting to work again, because all at once I recognize what that noise is: the mob is back, and from the ferocity of the slamming, they must be making a serious effort to break down the gate. Has everyone run away? Did they completely forget about me? I picture the hotel burning, everybody running for the woods or the sea, with me still locked in this room and Marley, poor Marley, helplessly dangling in her chrysalis.
Adrenaline floods through me, and I stand up and beat on the door. “Hey, I’m still trapped in here! Where is everyone? Please, somebody, answer me!”
In a lull between slams, I think I hear something near the door, but it’s so soft I can’t be sure. A whispery noise, like a hand brushing wood.
“Hello? Is someone there?”
No answer, so I drop to the floor again and twist my neck to peek through the crack. I don’t see even a hint of red warmth.
But I do see two objects moving, shifting gently and restlessly from side to side on the hallway carpet. After staring in bewilderment, I realize what they are. They’re only inches from my face.
A pair of damp bare feet the color of pale jade.