ON DROGANE, CORA SOON learned what Bonebreak meant when he said days there didn’t pass the same way as they did on Earth. In the darkness of the hollow mountain, any hint of the exterior sun was gone. Instead the Mosca counted time by the throbbing of the glowworms, which pulsed consistently for what Cora calculated, using the time conversion clock the Mosca children made for her, to be around fifty-seven Earth hours, and then shut off for twelve.
Cora spent every day practicing her training. Levitation with Anya and solving mental puzzles with Willa, as well as keeping to a strict physical regimen: push-ups until she collapsed; agility until her toes went numb; running up and down the ramp that circled Ironmage’s building twenty laps a day.
She reached the tenth floor—Ironmage’s home—just as her leg muscles threatened to give out. Twenty. Done. Her forehead was slick with sweat. She walked onto the suspended balcony outside Ironmage’s door and collapsed on the terrace, chest heaving as she caught her breath. Around her, eerie white plants that got their nutrients from the air hung from the balcony railings, overlooking the dark subterranean city of Tern.
She checked her time against the conversion clock. Four minutes faster than the day before.
Better.
Chest still heaving, she forced herself to sit up. Training wasn’t over yet.
She adjusted her goggles and took out Lucky’s journal. She’d spent time each day after her physical regimen going through it, soaking up Lucky’s words, remembering him.
Everything that’s alive must die. If you can, give it a good life first. . . .
Lightweight, nearly inaudible footsteps sounded behind her and she put down the journal. Willa approached across the balcony, goggles knotted behind her head. For the last week they’d run through intellectual drills every afternoon, multiplying by fractions and rhyming difficult words, but Willa still hadn’t said anything about her own experience in the Gauntlet. The chimp swung herself up to perch on the railing in a way that made Cora’s head spin, but Willa only looked down calmly at the hundred-foot fall. Willa pointed to Lucky’s journal.
“Yeah,” Cora said. “I practically have it all memorized by now. I wish you’d known him. His granddad taught him a moral code. Not like the Kindred’s code—it doesn’t have anything to do with logic, but rather kindness. Listen to this.” She read, “‘Don’t make anything suffer just because you can’t stomach what needs to be done. Be true to the soul of the world.’”
Willa nodded. She reached out a hand, touching Cora’s heart, and Cora nodded back.
“That’s right,” Cora said. “Heart. That’s what Lucky was all about. That’s why his words are going to help me in the Gauntlet.” She frowned as she tucked the journal back into her pocket. “You know, I keep thinking about Rolf and Nok. And all the people we left behind on Armstrong. It was chaos. What if another bad sheriff took over? They could be enslaved again, or worse.” Cora tried not to think about all those dead bodies under the tent.
Willa handed her a note.
. . . Or they could be thriving. They were strong. Believe in them.
Cora smiled. “Thanks. I needed that.” She sighed. “Time for more multiplication tables?”
But Willa shook her head. She jumped down from the railing and waved Cora over to one of the low benches on the balcony. She patted the seat next to her and then held out a note.
We have only eleven human days left. It’s time to practice something real.
Cora looked up in surprise. “You mean a real intellectual puzzle from the Gauntlet?” She dropped her voice. “One of the ones you solved when you ran it?” A thrill ran through her, thinking about getting real information at last.
Willa nodded.
She handed over several scraps of paper. Cora took each one and studied them carefully. Her hands shook a little as she imagined being in the Gauntlet itself just days from now. Willa had been there once, sequestered in a ten-by-ten-by-ten puzzle cube, trying to solve this very same puzzle. What had been going through the chimp’s head? Had she been confident? Scared?
Each paper held a number.
46
823
4164
38
1022
Willa took out her notebook and wrote:
Sort out the numbers and you will end up with one word. The word will be your key to solving the puzzle.
Cora took a deep breath. Rolf would have probably been able to solve it in thirty seconds. But Rolf wasn’t able to help her now. She was on her own, just like she’d be in the Gauntlet. No Lucky and his morals. No Rolf and his number games. No Nok with her gift for language, no Leon to climb walls for her.
She set the scraps of paper on the bench and started rearranging them. She tried to order them like a numerical crossword, but it led to nothing. She tried reading them backward, then tried using multiples, and then tried factoring numbers by each other. Nothing.
Sensing her frustration, Willa picked up the 46, set it at the top of the bench, and then drew out a 2 in the dust beneath it.
Cora studied the scraps of paper. “Two? You mean that the missing link between four and six is two? But how does that form a word?” It suddenly clicked. “B? You mean it’s alphabetical?” She started moving the squares faster, using trial and error until she found a relationship among all the numbers, then translated them alphabetically into letters that she rearranged to spell a word.
B-E-L-O-W.
“Below?” Cora said.
Willa wrote in her notebook:
Good. In the Gauntlet, each chamber has six doors, one on each wall. When I solved this puzzle, it told me that I should go through the lowest door—BELOW—to move on to the next. Of course, each iteration of the Gauntlet is different. It is unlikely you will get this exact puzzle.
And then she added:
It took me only sixty seconds to solve.
Cora read the note and rolled her eyes. “We can’t all be genetically modified supergenius chimpanzees.”
Willa smiled.
Cora looked again at the number puzzle and her mood shifted back to one of worry. “Cassian said some of the puzzles were dangerous. A lot more dangerous than just getting the wrong door. He said that out of eleven humans who have run the Gauntlet before, none of them survived.” She paused. “Isn’t there anything else you can tell me about it? How it works, how it strategizes? Why it’s so dangerous?”
The smile fell from Willa’s face. Her fingers started drumming anxiously over her pencil. Cora couldn’t see her eyes behind the goggles, but she sensed Willa was thinking back on memories she’d rather not remember.
At last, the chimp wrote:
The Gauntlet wants you to feel confident—a false confidence that will trick you into arrogance. The psychological tests start from the very beginning. They get harder. I made it as far as the eighth puzzle chamber. It was a moral puzzle—
The pencil stopped moving in her hand.
“A moral puzzle?” Cora asked, surprised. “I thought you failed in a perceptive one.”
Willa shook her head and then held up the pencil in the air. When she took her hand away, the pencil hovered in empty air. Cora started. All this time, Willa was that effortlessly perceptive? And she had still failed the Gauntlet?
Willa plucked the pencil out of the air and wrote:
The Gauntlet gave me a perceptive puzzle in module five. The puzzle chamber caught fire on all four sides. I couldn’t get to any doors without putting the fire out, but there was nothing but sand in a box too high to reach. I had to use telekinesis to move the sand to smother the fire, or I would have died.
And then . . .
She paused, her hand shaking slightly. Cora wasn’t certain she would continue until she wrote:
Puzzle six was an intellectual puzzle. A word problem, but in real life. It was about determining when two trains would intersect. The trick was not to crash them. One broke through the wall, letting me into puzzle seven. That module was a physical puzzle. Balance. That one was easy for me, of course, but a Conmarine runner in a different module fell and died. And then puzzle eight. The moral one.
Her lips were set firmly.
After a moment, Cora rested a hand over hers and said, “You don’t have to tell me. Not until you’re ready.”
Willa hesitated for a few moments and then wrote:
The final four puzzles make up the third round. In the third round, they will make it personal. They need to know that the Gauntlet is real for you. That round is when I—
Willa stood abruptly.
It doesn’t matter. I failed. That is all you need to know.
Willa left in a hurry. Cora sat on the bench alone, studying the scraps of Willa’s notes, wondering what had traumatized Willa so much that she couldn’t even discuss it. When she looked up, she saw Anya standing by the doorway, half hidden behind a white fern. How long had she been there, watching?
Cora held up a hand in a small wave. “Anya?”
Anya hesitated, her features tight, and quickly crossed the balcony to Cora’s bench. She sat a little closer than normal. Her hands were shaking again.
“What did Willa say to you?” Anya asked.
Cora’s eyes widened. “Willa? Just the usual advice.” She tilted her head. “Are you okay? I know we haven’t had a lot of time to talk outside of training, but you haven’t been acting like yourself ever since Fuel Station Theta. I’ve barely even seen you except for trainings and meals.”
“I’ve been trying to see if I could get any information from the children,” Anya said. Again, she looked toward where Willa had gone. “Willa didn’t say anything else about the Gauntlet? No other advice?”
“Not much. I think it troubles her to talk about it.”
Anya’s face relaxed slightly.
“What’s wrong?” Cora asked. “I thought you and she were friends.”
“I thought so too,” Anya said. “But I sense something different about her. I can’t put my finger on it, but I don’t think you should trust any advice she gives you. It’s been a long time since I knew her, and her loyalties might have changed.”
Before Cora could ask more, Bonebreak came onto the balcony.
“Well, little childrens. Guess what just landed on the surface.”
Cora felt a nervous thrill. “The Gauntlet?”
Bonebreak nodded. “The preliminary modules docked at first light. It is constructing itself as we speak. And fortunately for you, I have some friends who monitor the transport hub near the surface. I’ve arranged for them to be conveniently absent so that we can take a private tour.” He rubbed his hands together in glee.
Cora started. “Now?”
“Yes, while the storms are holding off.”
Cora stood.
Anya jumped up. “I’ll come too!”
“No.” Cora wasn’t even sure what instinct had made her answer so quickly. There was no reason not to trust Anya. Anya was more dedicated to humanity’s freedom than practically anyone else in the universe. But Cora couldn’t shake an uneasy feeling. “You still haven’t entirely recovered. You should rest. I’ll go alone.”
Anya gave her a confused stare, but Cora turned away.
“Let’s go,” Cora said to Bonebreak, trying to sound confident. But the truth was, as much as Anya warned her about Willa, Cora couldn’t help the feeling that Anya was the real wild card. Those Kindred drugs, somehow, had made her more unpredictable. And right now, Cora needed people she could count on—even if that meant only herself.