Twelve
“Your friends are in the west cells in the dungeon. There are Empty guards on the doors. Only one way in or out. I don’t see how we’re going to manage it,” Ash said. They were all sitting together on the ground under the tree in the garden, the kitten-of-ashes wandering around chasing specks of dust and leaving tiny scorch marks in the grass.
“Can you get in?” Eleanor asked.
“We’re not permitted,” Ash said. “And if they spot you, the Empty will send up an alarm.”
She could open a portal into the dungeon—maybe. But even escaping the throne room had left her exhausted. What if she got them into the dungeon and couldn’t get them back out?
Eleanor bit her lip, thinking. Usually she had Pip and Otto to bounce ideas around with and come up with a plan. Without them, her mind felt blank. Blank like the Empty.
Eleanor looked at Thea. Her bright, shiny hair tumbled around her shoulders—but Eleanor knew it was an illusion. “Melia, can you make us look like we’re Empty with your illusions?” Eleanor asked.
Melia considered. “I could make us look right, but they’d still know. If we actually want to fool them, I have to Empty us. Not all the way. We’d recover. But it wouldn’t be pleasant.”
“If Thea can handle it, so can I,” Eleanor said.
“That still leaves the problem of getting them all out,” Ash said.
“If you can get us in, I can get us out,” Eleanor said with more confidence than she felt.
“How?” Melia asked, leaning forward with bright interest in her eyes.
“I’ll show you once we have my friends,” Eleanor said.
“And you’re certain it will work? We will only have one chance at this,” Ash said.
“How long do we have before your parents decide to Empty one of my friends, or turn them into weapons?” Eleanor asked.
“Not long,” Ash acknowledged.
She gave him a stubborn look. “Then I’m certain.”
“We’ll need time to prepare for the journey,” Melia said, getting to her feet. “I’ll Empty the three of you. I can’t Empty myself. What is taken from you, you can get back. But what you take from yourself is gone forever. If I Empty myself, I’ll be Empty forever.”
“So I have to do it for her,” Ash said. He swallowed, rubbing the back of his neck. “I’m not as good at it. If I get it wrong, I’ll take the wrong things—things that won’t grow back.”
“You’ll be fine,” Melia told him, unbothered. “I need to get ready. Get my things. Ash, make sure she doesn’t run off.”
“Where would I go?” Eleanor asked, insulted, but Melia paid her no mind, striding off and vanishing through the gap in the wall. Eleanor blew out a huff of breath. Ash chuckled.
“She can be a bit slow to warm up to people,” he said.
“Yeah?”
“I’ve been trying to get on her good side for fourteen years and it hasn’t worked yet,” he explained, and Eleanor laughed despite herself.
Thea’s nose crinkled. “She’s Mother’s favorite. It’s hard for her,” she said. She’d pulled her knees up to her chest and was nervously plucking blades of violet grass.
Ash ruffled Thea’s hair. “I know. You’re right.”
Thea looked intently at Eleanor. “Mother makes her stay for all of the Emptying. Makes her do it, too. She hates it so much, but she doesn’t have a choice.”
“That’s why we’re getting out of here,” Ash told her reassuringly. The kitten-of-ashes sat by his foot and smacked the toe of his boot twice, insistently. He chuckled and scooped her up, turning her upside down in the crook of his arm. He tapped her nose affectionately. She sneezed sparks. “We’re bringing you, too, little pest. Don’t worry.”
Eleanor shook her head wonderingly. Of all the strange and bewildering things she’d encountered, this was the hardest to understand.
She watched Ash and Thea play with the kitten-of-ashes, and tried not to think about the monsters she knew they would become.
MELIA RETURNED A short while later with the hedgewitch’s bag slung over her shoulder. Eleanor leaped to her feet. “Where did you get that?” she asked.
“With the rest of the prisoners’ things,” Melia said. She had an excited gleam in her eye. “Who does it belong to?”
“My mother. Sort of,” Eleanor said.
“Is the spell to cross between worlds in here?” Melia said curiously.
“I’ll tell you how we’re leaving once we have my friends back,” Eleanor said. She didn’t want them getting the idea that they didn’t have to hold up their end of the bargain. In her time, the siblings were pretty strict about keeping their promises, but she didn’t know if it was the same now.
“Let’s get started, then,” Melia said. She beckoned them over, but Eleanor hung back. Now that it was time, the thought of being Emptied was suddenly terrifying.
“You’re sure it won’t be permanent?” Eleanor asked, flinching away.
Melia looked impatient. “I already told you. The only way to make it permanent is to Empty you all the way or if you Empty yourself.”
“Right. Okay,” Eleanor said. She drew forward. She’d agreed to go first, but now she was regretting it. What if this was a trap? What if they were only pretending to want to escape? What if—
Melia’s fingertips brushed against Eleanor’s temples. Melia looked deep into her eyes. For a moment Eleanor felt only her cool touch, and then there was a sharp pinch that shot down to the very center of her body.
It felt like she was a pumpkin getting its guts scooped out. It didn’t hurt, exactly, but it might have been better if it did.
Melia was kind, at least. She took Eleanor’s fear first, so there was only one quick blaze of panic and then she could stand calmly as other parts of her were sheared away. She hadn’t understood what it would mean to be Empty until she felt it happening. Grief—gone. The memory of her mother’s face with the hedgewitch’s eyes peering from it didn’t inspire any sadness anymore. It was just a fact.
Friendship—that was torn away, too. Pip and Otto were people she knew, but she couldn’t quite recall why she spent so much time with them.
The delight of her cousin Naomi’s babble faded. The warm comfort of Jenny’s arms wrapped around her went, too, and the simple wonder of looking up at the night sky. She wasn’t truly Empty. Her memories remained, cluttering up her insides. But none of them had meaning anymore.
With every piece of her that vanished, the garden grew. Flowers bloomed; vines snaked up the walls. Was that where everything in the garden had come from? Pieces of people who had been Emptied?
“I have to leave you something,” Melia had said. “Tucked away, but still there. Otherwise none of it will grow back.”
When Melia stepped away, it took Eleanor a few dull seconds to find the fragment of herself that had been left. It took her another moment to realize what it was.
Determination.
They were going to get out of here.
“Eleanor?” Melia said. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” she said. Her voice was flat. All of her was flat.
Thea whimpered when Melia started to Empty her. Eleanor remembered that she would have felt bad for the girl a few minutes ago, but that was gone now. Soon enough, the garden was lusher than ever, and Thea walked over to Eleanor, standing placidly beside her.
“Now me,” Melia said, and straightened her shoulders. Ash grimaced as he stretched out his hands, but Melia hardly blinked. It wasn’t long before he stepped back, a frown on his face.
“Is something wrong?” Eleanor asked.
“No,” he said. “It’s just . . . that was easier than I expected.”
“Because you are growing more skilled,” Melia noted in a monotone. “May I begin?”
He nodded, and she reached for him.
When she was done they all stood, drab but not entirely colorless, and surveyed each other without emotion.
“I will need to apply the illusions to complete the effect,” Melia said tonelessly.
Eleanor watched as Melia worked and found that she had a very different view of things. All her emotions and attachments had muddled things. They made it harder to see the truth and to make rational decisions.
It was a rational decision to rescue the others. She required Pip and Otto in order to defeat the curse, and the expertise of the hedgewitch was useful. But she was not as certain that cooperating with the siblings had been a logical choice. They would someday become her enemies. Why had she decided that she could trust them?
Because she felt sorry for them.
That is not a good reason to trust someone, she thought. And she’d ignored any misgivings she’d had after that because she was so worried about her friends. Another bad decision because of her feelings for other people.
Maybe she could get Melia to make being Empty permanent. Eleanor could stay this clearheaded forever.
“We should go,” Eleanor said. Every moment of delay reduced their chances of escape.
“What about the kitten?” Thea asked. They looked down. The kitten-of-ashes was crouched against the grass, ears back.
“We agreed to take her,” Ash said.
“If she doesn’t behave, she might alert the Empty,” Melia pointed out, and they all considered her point. “We were behaving irrationally. We shouldn’t risk our lives for her.”
“Agreed,” Ash said.
“It’s the smartest decision,” Thea said, though that wasn’t quite the same as agreeing.
Eleanor thought Melia was correct. They were taking a risk by bringing the kitten. It might get all of them captured. “No,” she found herself saying, not quite sure why. “We agreed to take her. That makes it a promise. You shouldn’t break promises.” She bent and reached for the kitten, who swiped furiously at her. “I won’t hurt you.”
Reluctantly, ears pinned back, the kitten allowed herself to be picked up. Eleanor held her out toward Ash—he was the one who could hide her inside his shirt, since it was so loose. He looked at her a moment as if he was going to refuse, and then accepted the hissing little beast. He held her up at eye level.
“If you make noise, the Empty will find you and eat you,” he informed her. The kitten fell silent, and when he tucked her inside his shirt she curled up in a little ball and didn’t move.
They filed down the hall together. Up ahead, one of the Empty appeared. Eleanor didn’t feel even the tiniest flutter of fear as the man strode past them. She could never have pretended to be this calm, she realized. She had so very much anxiety and fear and worry in her when she wasn’t Empty, it was a wonder she got anything done. How easy. How simple it was, with nothing inside.
Around they went, and down, deep into the belly of the castle of the Pallid King and Queen. And then they came to the dungeons. The entrance was a thick iron door, narrow so that only one person could go through at a time. Ash took the lead, walking in a straight, steady line up to the door, where two Empty soldiers with jagged spears stood guard.
They filed in, one after the other. Eleanor followed the others into the dungeon, firmly deciding to request that Melia complete the process once they were out of here.
They went down another set of stairs, with colorless torches flickering in sconces beside them and water dripping somewhere, and then they reached a corridor lined with cells. The first several were empty, but halfway toward the back of the room a familiar figure sat slumped against the bars. Otto had his knees up to his chest and his gaze fixed blankly on the wall, and for a moment in the strange light, Eleanor thought he had been Emptied already.
But then Otto looked toward them and bolted to his feet. He stared at her, and his mouth dropped open. “No,” he breathed. “No, no—”
“It’s an illusion,” Eleanor said quickly, before he could panic and make too much noise.
Pip appeared at the bars of the opposite cell. Gloaming lay discarded on the ground by her feet, and the bars were covered with bright stripes where the metal had been gouged as if struck by the sword.
The hedgewitch peered out from the cell next to Pip’s, looking more interested than alarmed. She looked like she wanted to pick them apart and see how they worked. The hedgewitch was a little bit Empty herself, Eleanor reflected. Cut off from caring. It was part of what made her powerful. They should all try to be like that. Then Otto wouldn’t look pale and shaky, and Pip wouldn’t have tear tracks raking through the dirt on her cheeks. They could have waited calmly and patiently for Eleanor to arrive.
“What are you doing with them?” Pip demanded.
“They are going to help us escape. And they’re going to come with us. Trust me,” Eleanor said, and Pip nodded. Pip should have asked a lot more questions, Eleanor reflected. If she’d been properly Empty, she wouldn’t have just let Eleanor tell her what to do.
“Do you have the keys?” Otto asked, swallowing his discomfort.
“No, but I can make them,” Melia said. “I will need to borrow from each of you to do it. It will be very uncomfortable, but please submit.”
“Whoa. Hold up. What are you going to do to us?” Pip asked. Eleanor would have been irritated, if she could feel irritation. Couldn’t Pip see that they were doing what they needed to?
Actually, she was irritated. And then, very faintly, alarmed. The Emptying was wearing off already! If it wore off too much, the Empty at the door might sense them and come to investigate why there were suddenly extra people down below.
“They can make things out of emotions and stuff,” Eleanor said. “It’s just borrowing. She can put them back. Right?”
“If I make a physical object, I can unmake it and return what I took,” Melia confirmed.
“Start with me,” the hedgewitch said. “I’m curious about the process.”
Melia nodded and drifted down the aisle to the hedgewitch’s cell. She reached out and put her fingertips to the hedgewitch’s temples, and the hedgewitch let out a little sigh.
Then Melia dropped her hands and opened her palm. In her left hand rested a long silver key. “Curiosity makes an excellent key,” Melia said. The hedgewitch’s eyes looked a tad dull, and she stared at Melia with a bored expression.
Melia opened the door. The hedgewitch stepped out. She looked like she wanted to ask a question but couldn’t quite think of it. “Who is next?” Melia asked.
“Can’t you just use that key for all of us?” Otto asked, equal parts wary and interested. The hedgewitch gave a gasp, and Otto frowned at her. “What’s wrong? Does it still hurt?”
“It doesn’t hurt,” the hedgewitch answered.
“What does it feel like?” he asked, but she just stared at him.
“It’s very hard to describe,” Eleanor said.
“But how—” Otto started.
“We’re running out of time,” Ash said, cutting him off.
“Then I guess you’d better take my curiosity next,” Otto said.
Melia walked over to him, but when she set her fingers to his temples she shook her head. “Your curiosity is . . . stuck. I will take this.” She drew her hands away, the key forming in the air as she did. It was bubblegum pink and had a bubble wand on the end.
“What did you take for that?” Otto asked, peering at it.
“I want to get home to see my sisters,” Melia said.
“Interesting. You’re right, I don’t anymore. Objectively speaking, they’re pretty annoying,” Otto said. Eleanor felt a tiny wiggle of amusement somewhere deep within her.
Something scraped behind her. She turned, but there was nothing—only the stone walls and the stairs back up. She frowned. What had that sound been?
A faint howl sounded, as if coming from very far away.
She shuddered. The hounds.
There was something wrong in the air. Like running your fingers over cloth and finding a snagged thread. She thought of Wander, stitching up the air to mend the tears she’d made by traveling the Wending. Had Eleanor left a tear behind as well?
Eleanor resisted the urge to tell Melia to hurry. Melia already knew she needed to move quickly. Rushing her wouldn’t help. But once Pip was free—“Boredom hates a locked door”—Eleanor leaned in to whisper to her.
“Have Gloaming ready. The umbral hounds are near.”
Pip nodded. Melia unmade the keys with a gesture, and Pip gave a shiver as the sliver of boredom slipped back into her.
The growling that Eleanor had heard earlier came again, closer this time. The hounds were close. She reached for the Wending—and found nothing. She frowned. She’d found it before. Why wasn’t it there now? She reached again. This time, she felt it—the way between worlds. It was faint, but growing slowly brighter.
It wasn’t the only faint thing. All the bright threads that joined her to the others had faded almost to nothing. All her connections to people. All the connections between worlds.
Come on, Wending, she thought. Her whole self was coming alive again, and any minute the Empty would sense her or the hounds would arrive.
“Now,” Ash said, tearing her attention away. “How are you getting us all out of here?”
“I’m going to open something called the Wending,” Eleanor said. “It will take us to another world. Hopefully the right one, this time.”
“How?” Melia pressed. “Is it some spell?”
“No. It’s just—well, me,” Eleanor said.
“You can open the way between worlds yourself?” Melia asked sharply. “It’s not an object or a spell or a potion. It’s you.”
“That’s right,” Eleanor said impatiently.
“Then you’re the one we need,” Melia said, her voice cold.
“What?” Otto said, alarmed.
“Melia?” Thea asked uncertainly.
“You will serve our parents and open the way to other worlds, so that our armies can spill across them and conquer them all,” Melia said. Her voice was flat—no triumph. No guilt.
“What did you do?” Ash demanded.
“I played along to find the information I needed, like you should have,” she replied.
“You told Mother and Father what we were doing,” Ash said.
“They’ll be here soon,” Melia confirmed, as the others stared in horror.
“How could you?” Thea asked, eyes filling with tears.
Ash’s voice was shaky. “I noticed it when we were making ourselves look Empty, but I thought I must have been mistaken. You’ve Emptied yourself, haven’t you? What did you take?”
“The parts that hurt,” Melia said. “I couldn’t bear the things Mother made me do, Ash. It was the only way I could survive. It gave me clarity. Peace. You could have that, too.”
Ash rounded on Eleanor. “Get us out of here. Now.”
“I’m trying,” Eleanor said, but the threads of the worlds were still slipping from her reach.
Pip let out a startled cry and pointed. Descending the stairs was the stretched-out figure of the Pallid King. He should have been too tall for the space, but the walls seemed to stretch around him. He folded his spidery hands and regarded Eleanor with those black eyes that did not catch the light.
“You see?” Melia said, turning to her father. “Your answer. We can use her to find and conquer other worlds. As I promised.”
“Bring her to me,” the Pallid King said in a whisper that skittered along Eleanor’s skin.
“Don’t you dare,” said Pip, bringing Gloaming to bear. The Pallid King extended one long finger, pointing at her. Pip gasped. She dropped to one knee, Gloaming clanging against the floor as her arms went slack. Otto started forward, but the hedgewitch reached out and caught his arm, tugging him back with her, toward the far wall.
Ash stood between Eleanor and his father, his hands in fists at his sides. The Pallid King looked down at the two of them. She looked up and up and up at his towering figure, and discovered that her fear was finally returning.
Looking straight into the Pallid King’s face was hard—like staring at a Wrong Thing. She’d been mistaken when she thought the monarchs didn’t have faces. The Pallid King’s face did have features, a nose and a cruel, downturned mouth. It was just that unless she was staring directly at it, she couldn’t remember it even long enough to realize what she was seeing.
“Move aside, my son,” the Pallid King whispered. Ash trembled. “We admire your cleverness. Obey me now, and you will be forgiven. You will ride with us as we open the doors to many worlds. Yours will be the sword and the crown. Yours will be the throne.”
The growling Eleanor had heard earlier grew louder. Turned to howling. The Pallid King looked toward the noise, frowning.
“What—”
The wall beside him ripped open, and the road came spilling out. The road, and Shatterblack and Rag-a-bone, their eyes blazing. They sailed through the air toward Eleanor.
The next few moments were complete chaos. The Pallid King roared in fury. The hounds, suddenly realizing their prey wasn’t alone, launched themselves at the newly discovered threat. The Empty soldiers rushed to defend their king.
Eleanor whirled around. Now or never, she thought. Come on, Wending.
With all the hope and fear and power she had in her, she reached. And she found it. It was like the moment when you finally understand a tricky math problem. She almost laughed as the sense of the Wending unfolded in her mind. Yes! Open a road. Take us home, she thought, and shouted in triumph as the far wall, where Otto and the hedgewitch were sheltered, vanished. A cobbled road flowed past it—a very familiar cobbled road. It was Eden Eld.
“Go! Hurry!” she shouted. The hedgewitch needed no more prompting. Holding Otto firmly by the arm, she dragged him onto the newly appeared road.
Pip scrambled to her feet, the king’s control failing. She glanced at the fight, and then at Thea, who stood frozen in terror, her back against the bars. Pip reached out a hand.
“Coming?” she asked, and the grin that stretched across her face was Jack, through and through. Rescuing the fair maiden. Pip and Thea ran onto the road. Eleanor started after them.
“Stop her,” the Pallid King whispered.
A hand clamped around her arm. She wheeled, nearly falling over as it yanked her to an abrupt stop. She stared into Ash’s face. He stared back.
“Let’s go,” she said. She searched his eyes. He wasn’t Empty. She could see the fear in them. “Ash, we can escape. Just let me go, and you can come with us.”
“Bring her here,” the Pallid King commanded. The Empty now had the hounds at bay, driving them back up the stairs. One of the hounds gave a horrible, high-pitched yelp. Pip was shouting Eleanor’s name, but it seemed to come from a great distance.
“Ash,” Melia said. She stood at her father’s side. Her face was stony. “Don’t be a fool.”
Ash’s expression hardened. “I’m sorry,” he said. His hand tightened around her arm.
The kitten-of-ashes suddenly burst out of Ash’s shirt, sinking her tiny needle teeth into his earlobe.
Ash yelped, dropping Eleanor’s arm as the kitten swung from his ear. He swiped at her and she fell to the floor with a yowl. Eleanor ducked and grabbed the kitten as Ash reared back, hand clapped to his bleeding, singed ear.
Eleanor ran. Pip reached out and grabbed her arm, pulling her onto the road.
“Close it!” Pip hollered.
Panting, exhausted, Eleanor turned. The Pallid King had withdrawn. His arm ended above the wrist. It looked more like splintered wood than flesh.
Close, close, close, she willed the road. It began to disentangle itself from the Pallid King’s world. Ash walked toward the road, but he didn’t step onto it. Eleanor couldn’t read his expression. Was that anger, or guilt?
The last ribbon of connection was fading. In the instant before the dungeon vanished, Ash looked her straight in the eyes. “Keep Thea safe,” he said.
“I promise,” Eleanor replied.
And then he was gone.