Regent spread his hand over Zoe’s face.
She felt her cheekbones ignite.
The heat shot down her neck. It made a path of her bones, her veins, her muscles, anything it could find. It was terrifying. Also awesome. Zoe felt like she was being eaten by fire.
“Is it—is it supposed to feel like this?” she said.
Regent seemed not to hear her. No, that wasn’t it—she hadn’t actually said it out loud.
The heat drowned her other senses. She felt her skin redden, her thoughts melt into each other. The flames crinkling in the rivers, the prisoners drumming on their doors … She couldn’t tell if the noises were real or not, if they were happening inside of her or out.
She wriggled her fingers to prove to herself that they were still hers, that she was still present in her own body.
Yes, she was still in control.
Or maybe she hadn’t really wriggled her fingers?
The heat seemed to hold her for ages, but when it vanished she discovered that not even a second had passed: Regent was still taking his hand away from her face.
As Zoe’s skin cooled, the heat was replaced by a kind of euphoria. She felt golden. Invincible. Her legs, her arms, her fists—everything pulsed with power.
She gazed around the arena, her senses on overdrive. That fire in the river: she could feel the minute fluctuations in the temperature of the flames. The screaming statue: she could see into the dark pits of its pupils.
“We must test your powers to see if they have taken root,” said Regent.
“Oh, they’ve taken root,” said Zoe.
How she loved saying words, all of a sudden! She could feel her mouth and tongue shaping them. Words!
“We must test your powers,” said Regent more forcefully.
Zoe couldn’t stop smiling.
She punched him in the face.
They darted back to the fight, Zoe just a few steps behind Regent. She was nearly as fast as him now. She felt as if there were stars in her blood.
X lay at the guards’ feet. The Cockney was kicking him savagely in the head, as if he held a personal grudge. The other men chanted encouragement.
The Cockney heard something, and turned to see Zoe fly at him. He gave her a patronizing grin.
Mistake.
However protective she’d felt of X up in the world, Zoe felt a hundred times more protective of him now. Maybe it was because she had seen the sickening place he’d been forced to grow up in. Maybe it was just that the powers Regent had given her were amplifying her feelings like they amplified every other stimulus.
She lowered her head, and tackled the Cockney like a linebacker. She hadn’t planned it. She didn’t know it was going to happen until it was happening. Her muscles moved faster than her mind.
The Cockney crashed onto his back, with Zoe on top of him. He was startled but, for the benefit of the other men, he said, “Hopin’ for a kiss, luv?”
Another mistake.
Zoe stood, and ripped the laces from one of his boots, her hand like a claw. She pulled the boot off his foot. Beneath it, there was a dingy, yellowed sock full of holes where the guard’s toes peeked through.
Zoe beat the Cockney in the head with the boot, just as he had beaten X. The surge of feeling was so thrilling that she hit him three times before she realized what she was doing was wrong. Even then she couldn’t convince her arm to stop.
From the corner of her eye, she saw Maudlin lifting a man high over her head, and throwing him down. Dervish’s men were so shocked by the turn of events that they’d ceased fighting. They looked to Dervish, hoping he would give them powers, too. But he didn’t trust them, didn’t care what became of them. They were just plastic soldiers to him, like Jonah’s figurines.
Zoe felt a hand on her shoulder. She clutched the Cockney’s boot even tighter, and spun angrily.
But it was X.
He must have seen that she was shaking. He circled her with his arms. Feeling his body was like falling into bed.
“I couldn’t stop myself,” she said. “I couldn’t stop.”
“It is always that way,” said X gently. “It takes you over entirely.”
Zoe saw that the sole of the Cockney’s boot was slick and red with blood. Disgusted with herself, she flung the thing as far as she could. It hit the door of a cell three levels up.
Dervish’s men retreated toward the tunnel under the arch. Now that they were outmatched, they had lost all will to fight.
Zoe saw Maudlin grab one of the guards before he could flee.
“You,” said Maudlin, “are not leaving here on your feet—not after what you did to my friend.”
It was the guard who’d thrown the Ukrainian into the river.
“Don’t, Maudlin,” said Zoe. “It’ll make you feel worse, not better.”
“I killed a surgeon once—he was going to hurt X’s mother,” Maudlin told her. “I’ve never felt bad about it, and I promise you I won’t feel bad about this either.” She paused. “By the way, I’m very glad to meet you. Call me Maud.”
Maud pushed the guard toward one of the fiery rivers. Dervish moved to stop her, but Regent flew at him to hold him back.
At the riverside, Maud stooped to pick up something that glinted on the ground. It was the silver necklace that had belonged to her friend. It must have broken off before he went in the water. Zoe’s eyesight was so sharp now that she could read the necklace from a distance: It said, MAMA.
Zoe watched Maud knock Dervish’s guard down. She watched the guard cower, trying to shield himself both from Maud and from the fire in the river.
He was sorry about the Russian, he said. Very sorry about the Russian.
Maud nodded, though Zoe didn’t think she was listening. Everyone, even Dervish, waited for her to pitch the man into the flames. Instead, Maud just stomped on one of his hands, shattering every bone. Given the situation, it was merciful, Zoe thought.
Maud slid the baseball bat into the water, like an offering. As she walked away from the man, she called over her shoulder, “He was Ukrainian.”
Zoe could see that Dervish had weakened. His gold band had turned his neck a deep, mottled red. He squirmed, and hissed at his men not to retreat, but Regent restrained him with what looked like very little effort. He told the squad they could return to their hives without fear of retribution.
“Forget every word of Dervish’s that ever fell upon your ears,” he said. “His mind is rotten with disease.”
Strangely, the guards no longer wanted to leave. Zoe understood: they were enjoying the lord’s humiliation.
Dervish spit some words out in disgust.
“Much as I despise you, Regent,” he said, “I never thought you would actually join X’s pathetic rebellion against the Lowlands—that you would jeopardize your OWN freedom for such a creature.”
X surprised Zoe by answering for Regent.
“This is not a rebellion against the Lowlands, Dervish,” he said. “Do you not see that at last? It is only a rebellion against you. The Lowlands will always stand, for there will always be vile men who deserve damnation. But I”—here, X turned to Zoe; she knew what he would say next and approved of it completely—“I am not one of them.”
X moved nearer to Dervish.
“Tell me which of these cells holds my mother,” he said. “Tell me now.”
Everyone gazed up at the hateful black caskets. They were packed as densely as a honeycomb.
“I shall NEVER tell you,” said Dervish. “You shall have to inspect EVERY BLESSED ONE.”
X tried to lunge at Dervish, but Zoe held him back. It surprised—and thrilled—her to see that she was every bit as strong as him now.
“Your mother’s not here,” she said. “Listen to me: she’s not here. But he said she’s close.”
“Please release my arm,” said X.
He was still raging at Dervish. She could feel it.
“I’ll let you go, but are you going to stay calm?” she said.
“No, in all likelihood, I will not,” said X.
She let him go anyway. He stepped to within a foot of Dervish.
“Where have you put my mother?” he said. “I am going to free her, and then she is going to free me.”
Dervish, even twisting with pain from the gold band, found that funny.
“I doubt it very much,” he said. “For one thing, only I know where your mother is, and only I shall EVER know. For another, she has been in the dark so VERY long now that I would be surprised if she were still—how to put this tactfully?—recognizably human.”
“Where is she?” X shouted. “She suffered enough at the hands of her husband when she was alive. I will not let her suffer another moment here.”
Dervish gave another strangled laugh.
“I repeat: I shall NEVER tell,” he said.
But then he said something that Zoe knew to be genuine and, for the second time since she’d come to the Lowlands, she felt a sliver of sympathy for him.
“Why should your mother have a son who loves her? I never did!”
No one spoke. The stalemate had its own particular silence.
Then a voice—shaky, but loud—called out to them.
Zoe recognized it, but couldn’t place it.
The voice said: “I know where your mother is, X. I was the guard that Dervish took with him.”
It was Tree.