The trip through the tunnel was torturous. Zoe crawled in front so she could make a bridge with her body for Sylvie when they came to where the rock had fallen away. X followed so he could try to shield his mother from the floods. Sylvie didn’t seem afraid, but she had no powers, no superhuman resilience. X felt as if he were transporting a pane of glass.
As he inched ahead on his stomach, he thought about what it would be like to be free. It was selfish, but he couldn’t help it. Unfortunately, he couldn’t stop the thought that came next either: What if the Lowlands never let him go? He imagined a guard thrusting him into the dark mouth of a cell. He imagined the bars slamming shut like teeth. Would it be enough to know that Zoe and his mother loved him—and that they loved him not because they didn’t know what was in his heart but because they did? The answer came at him hard.
No, it wouldn’t be enough.
He had to have Zoe. He had to be free.
When they reached the last stretch of the tunnel, where the fossilized sea creatures winked in the light, X got his first real glimpse of the canyon ahead. The little sea around the statue now lay utterly still. Even the waterfall that had rained down in front of the tunnel entrance had stopped—literally stopped, as if someone had pressed Pause. X could see the beads of water in midair.
Zoe called over her shoulder.
“Here we go.”
He watched her slip out of the tunnel, then help his mother into the water. He slid forward to join them.
“This is the part where I say we’ve got company,” said Zoe.
X lifted his eyes. There were lords up on the rim of the canyon, not just Regent and Dervish but a hundred of them, all peering down. They must have come from a dozen neighboring hives.
Word had traveled.
The three of them bobbed like corks.
“I know we don’t seem like much,” said Sylvie. “But we can do this.”
X saw that his mother was shaking from the cold. He hoisted her out of the water, and carried her up the canyon wall. When he looked back down for Zoe, she was gone. She’d swum off in another direction.
“Wait,” she called. “I think I see a friend.”
X scanned the water. There was a body, clothed in red, floating on its back near the base of the statue.
The Ukrainian. His face was black with ash.
But he was moving.
X watched as Zoe lifted the guard over her shoulder and began scaling the canyon beneath him and Sylvie. Her strength was beautiful to watch.
“I thought you were dead,” Zoe told the Ukrainian.
“Was already dead,” he answered gruffly. “Please pay attention.” He squinted up at Sylvie. “You are mama, of course?”
“I am,” said Sylvie.
“Your boy look very hard for you,” said the guard. “He was annoying about it, if I am being honest.”
X climbed toward Regent, ignoring the other lords. He climbed fast to show his strength. He would not be intimidated. Zoe was going home, and his mother was never going back to the Cave of Swords or any place like it.
Sylvie embraced Regent the instant they were out of the canyon. Her gingham dress was as wrinkled as a wrung-out cloth. Her boots were ordinary. But in the way she carried herself, she was more regal than any of the lords. They seemed to know it, too. They parted to give her and Regent room. They watched her with something like awe. X could hear Dervish ranting deep in the crowd, but the other lords held him back. A good sign.
“Hello, old friend,” Sylvie told Regent. “Has it been dull without me?”
Regent gave her a rare, unguarded smile.
“No, it has not,” said Regent. “We were joined by a mischievous young man so like you that it was as if you’d never left. I see that you have made his acquaintance.”
“My boy has a good heart, doesn’t he?” said Sylvie. “He came for me.”
“He has a very fine heart,” said Regent. “It is his mother’s.”
A screech cut the air: “Enough!”
Dervish had broken away.
X and Regent moved to protect Sylvie.
Dervish moved faster.
His eyes were crazed. The gold band had eaten into his neck. He hurled himself at X’s mother, and swept her over the side of the canyon.
X plunged in after them. As he fell, out of the corner of his eyes, he saw two others diving with him.
Regent. Zoe.
Dervish had his hands around Sylvie’s throat, and was holding her underwater, letting her up every now and again just to see her scream.
X and Regent swam at him from one side, Zoe from the other.
“COME NEAR ME,” Dervish shouted, “and I shall HOLD HER UNDER until her lungs COLLAPSE! I may not be able to kill her, yet I can turn her brain to PUDDING!”
X looked to Regent so they could coordinate an attack, but Regent was peering up at the lords. He seemed to be waiting for a signal.
“See how they STARE?” said Dervish. “You told yourself that they care, but why should they?”
He held Sylvie under again. Her legs kicked madly.
Just then, there was a scream from atop the canyon. Maud had pushed through the crowd with Vesuvius in her arms. She was watching.
X thought of the story of the drill, of how Fernley and the surgeon had tried to make his mother docile, compliant. Dervish was attempting to do the same.
Regent shouted to the lords.
“I shall end Dervish’s reign with my own hands, if we are in agreement. Show me a sign!”
Of all the silences X had ever heard, the one that followed cut deepest.
It was Zoe who finally broke it.
“Regent!” she said. “It’s time to stop asking permission!”
She cut through the water toward Dervish, but even in pain his powers were greater than hers. He swatted her away with his free hand, and she slammed against the wall of the canyon.
“How can you just watch?” X screamed at the lords. “Does nothing touch you?”
Again, they gave no answer. The silence doubled, tripled, until there seemed to be more of it in the world than air.
“How their apathy feeds me!” said Dervish. “It might as well be APPLAUSE!”
But then, one by one, the lords leaped into the water.
There were 5 of them, then 10, then 20. They swam up behind X and Regent, and—like an army, like a wave—closed in on Dervish.
Fear slid over Dervish’s face. He pushed Sylvie into the water and pulled her out again. He did it faster and faster. He did it with a kind of mania. The water churned. Sylvie’s body was limp as a doll’s.
The fourth time he wrenched her up, she sprang to life. There was something hidden in her hand. She slashed his face with it.
It was the shard from the porcelain pitcher that Fernley had beaten her with.
A bloody seam opened on Dervish’s face. Shocked, he released Sylvie, and clasped a hand against his cheek to heal it.
Sylvie swam toward Zoe, but was too spent to reach her. Zoe closed the distance in an instant. X watched as she gathered Sylvie up, and climbed with her toward safety, toward Maud.
The wound on Dervish’s face disappeared beneath his touch, but the gold band burned even hotter at his throat. He fought to pull it away from his skin, just as the Countess had.
X looked at Regent, a question in his eyes.
Regent understood, nodded.
X tore to where Dervish struggled in the water.
“Let me help you,” he said.
He reached for the gold band, and ripped it off Dervish’s neck.