| |
Ravel saunters over to the edge of the bank, yelps, and backpedals. Cadence laughs.
I drop into a defensive crouch, not that it will do much good if the monsters come after us, but the rearing necks and flicking tails subside when we show no further movement.
Ravel scuttles back several steps, breathing fast. Then he dusts himself off. “So, about lunch.”
“You could try fishing,” Cadence cackles. I snort.
His affected nonchalance fades into a cautious grin. “I take it I wasn’t in any danger?”
We laugh harder.
He rolls his eyes and scuffs off to dig up something to eat from the pack. I let him forage for himself this time.
He tosses me an apple. It bounces across the road and over the bank. The splashing that follows is louder and goes on longer than a single piece of fruit warrants.
We hustle several feet back up the mountain, abandoning the bike to its fate. When nothing chases, I perch on a convenient rock to consider our next move. We’ll have to cross that river somehow.
Ravel sidles over and squats on his heels. He offers me half his apple.
“Gross.” I wave it off, but my stomach growls.
He cocks an eyebrow and waves the apple under my nose. I give him a shove. He catches his balance and proceeds to munch away without comment while we both pointedly ignore the gurgling noises coming from my midsection.
“I knew about Ange,” Ravel says, finally, chucking the core behind him.
“Hmm?”
“Her little underground empire. How she and Cass were spying and running rescue missions. I always knew. We were friends when we were younger, you know.”
“Uh huh.”
“No, really. It’s not like they were all that stealthy. You think I wouldn’t notice my own staff sneaking around behind my back?”
I stretch my arms behind my back and listen to the joints pop. “You know I didn’t believe you the first time you brought it up. What’s with the repeat performance?”
He shrugs.
We sit and listen to the river and pretend it’s just the water roaring.
“You think I’m the bad guy,” he says, finally. “Okay, yeah, I’ve done a lot of bad things, but—”
I look at him sideways.
His shoulders droop. “I know. I sucked. But you have to understand, it’s complicated. I did what I had to. I tried to make it better. I—”
I walk back to the bike.
“Flame?” He trails after. “I’m messing this up, aren’t I? I just wanted to . . .”
It’s working. Without my attention, his protests weaken. He doesn’t have any power I don’t give him. At least, that’s what I’ve been hoping, but—
“No.” His wheedling tone transforms, taking on sharp-edges. “You know what? I’m not doing it. I won’t apologize for all of it. I did what I had to. I swear some of it even made things better. For some people. Sometimes. I got you out, didn’t I?”
I let my head fall back. Breathe through the rage his words stir. The insincere apologies are one thing. This show of honesty, manufactured in yet another attempt to trick me into believing in him.
Once enough tension’s drained that I can trust my voice, I turn. I measure each word out, low and steady. “You almost got me killed. More than once. If anything good came out of it, you certainly don’t get the credit.”
He opens his mouth, but I bring up a hand to stop him. “Oh, and let’s be clear. If anyone saved me, it was me. Not you. Not even Ash.”
Ravel scowls.
“Don’t start.”
“Just wondering where your knight in shining armour is at. Seems to me he hasn’t been around much.” He gestures expansively, as if inviting me to look for myself.
Cadence chokes on a retort he won’t be able to hear anyway.
I concentrate on the bike, checking the power levels and wiping dust from the charging panels to speed their efficiency. I could speed off without him. Let him try to find his own way back—on foot.
But it’s a silly fantasy, and one I don’t let myself indulge in it for more than a moment. If I didn’t need to use him more than I feared him using me again, we wouldn’t be having this argument.
Still . . . I give the bike one last wistful pat before returning to reality. “We should get going.”
“Flame—”
Nope. Enough of that. “My name is Cole.”
“That’s just the ID given to you by your oppressors,” he sneers.
I twist to glare at him, biting off each word. “My name is Cole.”
His lips thin. “He gets to call you Cady.”
“My name is Cole. Not ‘flame.’ Not ‘Victoire’ or ‘Cady’ or ‘Cadence.’ Cole. Now, get the pack and get back on the bike.”
He sulks his way over to the pack but stops with one hand on the straps. “You haven’t eaten yet.”
“On the bike. Now.”
As a strategy, “take charge and shut down the whining” may or may not be the most effective way to deal with his manipulation, but it definitely makes me feel better. I shove the charging panels into place, stowing them in the hollows on either side of the frame, and mount up. What remains of the old bridge lists, piles missing, sections cracking or half-submerged. Without a dreamwalker to fend off the river monsters, our best hope of getting across in one piece is to hit it at top speed. But from a standing start, that speed won’t be nearly as fast as I’d like.
I mentally plot the most promising course through potholes, slick river water, and debris, grit my teeth, and urge the bike forward. Seconds before we hit the bridge it kicks up another notch faster, as if it’s as afraid of what lies beneath as I am.
I’m halfway up the incline on the other side when I work out why my back feels unusually well ventilated.
“Don’t worry about it,” Cadence says. “Might as well finish the climb first.”
I push the bike harder in agreement, just for a heartbeat. Two. Three.
Then I let gravity pull us to a halt.
“Don’t want to burn out the engine.” I say it out loud for Cadence, the mountain, and anyone else listening who might mistake my intentions.
Ravel has no power here. Neither do I. He knew our only chance was to outrun the monsters.
So there are only two reasons he could have for getting off when he did. And whether the river monsters got him or he chose to bail, I can’t help him.
Like an idiot, I can’t help looking back all the same.
“No, really, you go on ahead. I’ll catch up.” Ravel waves from the middle of the bridge and dances back as a huge splash sends water surging toward him.
Moron.
Cadence hums agreement.
I stalk down the side of the mountain, catching up a jagged, loose bit of it to hurl when I reach the bottom. It scrapes past Ravel’s head—just—and smacks into the reaching tentacle. The monster roars in pain, or maybe just irritation, others joining in with screeches that send both Ravel and I to our knees, hands clapped over our ears.
“Not. Helping.” Ravel’s lips shape the words, but I can’t actually hear past the splashing and howling as river monsters surge into the air and scrabble for purchase on the bridge.
I stumble back, reaching for more chunks of rock to throw for lack of a better plan. But when I bring my hand back to hurl another stone, there’s a pause in the attack.
“Are they . . . watching you?” Cadence whispers.
I hold my breath and wave the stone in a slow arc. What seem to pass for faces tilt to follow. That the monsters have some form of intelligence doesn’t surprise me. That they can show restraint, or fear, does. It makes them seem like . . . something else.
Not monsters. Creatures. Like the one Grace and I met in the forest.
What had Susan said about it—that it would only fight back in self-defence? Something about us hurting it first?
Sweat traces a cold line down my back. My arm trembles, the stone heavy in my hand. I don’t lower it. But I do risk a glance away, scanning the riverbanks in both directions for signs of human habitation. A town. Even a single house. Some indication that we’d started this fight. Some hint that, like Susan believed, we’d made these monsters.
But, aside from the bridge itself, I can’t find any noticeably human mark left on this landscape.
“That doesn’t mean anything,” Cadence says. “There could be a whole city just around the bend. Or a flood wiped out the houses. Or—”
I lower the stone. The river monsters—the creatures—had made their presence known when we approached. But they hadn’t actually attacked until I hit first. Had they merely been warning us of their presence? Or had they been lying in wait?
“Flame?” Ravel follows the stone’s path with as much interest as the creatures, though his attention is understandably split.
Even when he slides a cautious foot forward, they don’t take their focus off me. I place my makeshift weapon on the ground and ease back, nodding to him.
“We won’t hurt you,” I say over Cadence’s protests.
Ravel’s eyes widen, but he creeps another few steps toward me before the creatures seem to notice. They hiss, shifting toward him. I raise both hands to show they’re empty and nod for him to follow suit.
“Just let him through, and we’ll go away and leave you in peace.” I stand as still as possible and do my best to make my voice slow and soothing.
It doesn’t come easily; Ravel is the persuasive one. Staying out of it and pretending nothing’s wrong is more my speed. But if I’m going to try to save a whole city, I should probably start practicing heroism sans magic now anyway.
“Yeah, that and he has our only map,” Cadence says.
Ravel flinches away from my sudden and, from his point of view, unexpected glare. The creatures turn on him.
He yells. They screech. I lunge. He puts on a burst of speed, ducking and swerving around snapping jaws and flailing tentacles.
There’s a tearing crunch, one shark-toothed maw closing from behind, and he goes down with a yell. I jump forward without thinking, hurtling for the bridge to, I can only assume, get eaten alongside this absolute idiot of a not-quite-enemy.
The monster drags Ravel into the air and shakes him like it’s trying to snap his neck. From this angle—why am I on the bridge what was I thinking I’m gonna die—I can see the monster’s mouthful is mostly backpack.
There’s a shredding sound and the contents of the pack drop, along with Ravel. The monsters dive in every direction, distracted by the sudden bouncing scatter of colourful hail.
One piece rolls toward me. But instead of something useful like our map, or even a stray apple, it’s only that stupid knot of wood again. I pick it up anyway in the sudden, eerie silence that falls between bending and rising again.
They’re all looking at me. Ravel, sopping with monster-drool and half the river. The inhabitants of said river seem suddenly less interested in our scattered provisions than in the one object that happened to make its way to me.
I extend it hesitantly. Their oil-slick eyes follow, teeth dripping, tentacles curling and uncurling hypnotically. I take one step, two, mincing until my toe nudges Ravel’s knee. I prod, hardly daring to breathe, much less speak, but he seems to get the message. I back away, careful to keep the knot in plain sight as Ravel creeps along beside me.
And then, impossibly, we’re on solid ground and, a heartbeat later, racing up the side of the mountain to get away from the splashing, roaring danger at its base.
We don’t stop until we reach the bike. Ravel collapses at its base, panting. His pant leg is ragged, blood seeping through, and his cheek is raw from that stone that almost-but-not-quite missed him. His back under his tattered shirt looks better than expected, though—the monster really did get mostly the pack. He’s lucky it went for him with its teeth instead of the tentacles. He’s even luckier I stopped and went back for him in the first place.
I drape myself over the bike and let my heartbeat settle from a full-out gallop to a thudding trot before kicking him in the ribs.
“Next time you decide to give in to that death wish of yours, give me the map first.”