THE DRECKTUBE TUNNELS WERE even worse than Cora had imagined.
Frigid, thin air crept up the folds of her pajamas as she crawled behind Leon on the rough-hewn ground. She’d snuck out of her cell as soon as the others had fallen asleep, tiptoeing to the door and knocking softly, half surprised that Leon had actually kept his word when he swung the door open for her, and even more surprised when he said he’d found Nok and Rolf in some giant dollhouse. Now, as he led her toward the Temple menagerie, her knees were already red and raw; thank goodness she wore a long dress during the day, because she didn’t know how she’d explain scraped knees to Dane in the morning.
“Gotta watch out for the traps,” Leon explained over his shoulder. “Almost sizzled me a few times, but I’ve learned their tricks now. It’s the packages that are the real danger. If you hear one coming, get out of the way. Hurts like hell if you get hit with one. What do you call it, again? Making things float around?”
“Telekinesis.”
“And you can really do that, eh?”
Cora kept crawling. She had told him about unlocking the cell door, and about the dice, and now she felt self-conscious. “It’s weird, I know.”
He snorted. “No way. Wish I could throw things around with my mind. Ooh, undress girls just by thinking about it. And stealing would be so much easier. . . .”
“Monsters.”
She stopped crawling abruptly. It was the same odd whisper as before. Her forehead broke out in sweat despite the frigid tunnel.
“Please tell me you heard that voice,” she said.
“Voice?” Leon frowned. “You feeling okay?” He twisted around and reached out, swiping his finger under her nose. It came away with blood.
She pinched her nose distractedly. “It’s . . . nothing. Let’s just keep going.”
“That’s a lot of blood.”
“Keep going.” Her voice was sharp.
Leon muttered something under his breath as he paused at a few doorways, consulting his markings. “So let’s say you can break this Anya girl out of her cell with your telekinesis badassery. Where exactly is she going to camp out? I’m guessing there isn’t a nice secret room for her in the Hunt.”
“Um, no. But I did have one idea.”
At her hesitation, he turned around, eyes hooded. “No.”
“Leon, she has to stay with you. There’s nowhere else.”
“I’d rather cuddle up with Kindred guards.”
“It won’t be forever. Just until after I’ve run the Gauntlet. A week or two, tops.”
“Are you kidding? That is forever.”
Cora let out a sigh, rubbing her hands over her face. If only the air wasn’t so thin, maybe she could think better. Leon was the kind of guy who would take a bribe, but she didn’t have any money or food or anything. What could she offer him?
“Close your eyes,” she said. “Think about something you really want.”
“More psychic shit?”
“I need to practice mind reading.”
He grumbled a little, but closed his eyes. She concentrated on probing into his thoughts. She sensed something colorful and bright, flashing lights that almost reminded her of the arcade back in the cage. But there was something else there, deeper. A face.
Her eyes flew open. “I knew you liked Mali!”
He cursed. “I wasn’t thinking about her. I was thinking about Assassin’s Creed.”
“Yeah, but not deep down. I can tell what you really want, way more than video games.” A slow smile stretched across her face. “If you helped us out, I’m sure Mali would be very grateful.”
He scowled deeper, rubbing his head as if he didn’t like the idea of her crawling around in his thoughts. But after a second, he asked, “How grateful?”
“Well Anya is like a little sister to her. And if it was my sister you were rescuing . . .” Cora thought for a minute. “Maybe second base?”
He snorted, and then turned around and started crawling again. “Whoring out your friends now, sweetheart? Remind me not to make any promises on your behalf. Don’t worry about it. Mali would probably just knock me out anyway. I’ll babysit your psychic brat. That’s what friends do, eh?”
Cora smiled.
“Could have used your psychic powers when I was trying to find out which door led to the Temple,” he continued. “Took me forever to figure it out. I staked them all out for days until I overheard someone say something about Zeus in the last one.”
They crawled to the last doorway, and he pointed to his chalk drawing.
“What’s that supposed to be, a goat?” she asked.
“Goat? It’s clearly a Greek Minotaur!” He grumbled as he wiped away a stray chalk mark. “If I had some proper paints, maybe charcoal pencils . . .”
He signaled for her to be quiet as he shouldered the door open a crack, holding his breath so as not to be too loud. A tickle itched the back of Cora’s head.
“Beware the monsters,” the voiceless whisper called. “Dancing through the halls.”
Cora flinched. Dancing? Through the halls? Either she really was going crazy, or the person sending her those psychic messages was.
Leon cursed and immediately pulled his head back in. “Shit!”
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s the Temple for sure, but not the backstage area. It’s the main hall and there’s Kindred roaming all around.”
Monsters dancing, Cora thought. Through the halls . . .
Was someone sending her a warning?
Tentatively, Cora peeked through the crack. It was the same shimmering Greek palace that she had visited with Cassian, only now she was looking at it from a different angle. Beyond the Kindred’s boots, she could make out the ten-by-ten-foot cells with lightlocks above the bars. If she strained her neck, she could see the last cell, Anya’s, and the girl’s sluggish hand sticking out between the bars—missing two fingers. The hand was waving languidly, as though conducting an imaginary orchestra of dancing monsters.
Cora ducked back in.
Could it have been Anya’s voice in her head?
“She’s there,” Cora said, “but there’s no way we can get to her out in the open. We have to find the backstage area.”
Leon rubbed the back of his head. “I know where the rest of these tunnels go, and it isn’t to the Temple’s backstage. Did you see how there were slots in their cells for passing things like food through? I don’t think there is a backstage in this menagerie.”
Cora’s head throbbed. She felt moisture beneath her nose again and wiped it away. She peeked back through the crack. “So to get to her, I’m going to have to walk right through the menagerie, amid dozens of Kindred, and flash around abilities I’m not even supposed to have to unlock her door?”
“And carry her out,” he said, eyeing her thin arms. “Don’t forget about that.”
“So, basically, it’s impossible.”
Leon closed the door and added a chalk mark that was a circle with a line through it, a symbol that looked like it marked certain doom. Then he patted her on the shoulder. “Good luck with all that, sweetheart.”