The Arakaanians ride single file, supplies tethered to their saddles, weapons slung round their backs. Rifles, mostly. Wooden staffs, clubs, a couple of swords. Elsa’s nursing a crossbow near the front of the line, sleeping in her saddle. Her speckled horse keeps breaking formation, wandering left or right till Elsa wakes up, swears loudly, yanks the poor beast back in line and passes out again. I may have spilled her stash of booze, but that didn’t stop her from nicking someone else’s.
She hasn’t even looked at me all morning.
We set off before dawn, when the suns started draining the northern sky of stars.
“Novu,” Yaku spat at me from his horse, jabbing a meaty finger in the directions of the compass. “Novu, torru, pillai, raan.” North, south, east, west. “We’re going raan.”
West to the mountain range, to the outpost, to Hickory and, beyond that, the secret canyon city. Asmadin, they call it. Resting place of the second Cradle key.
It’s midmorning now, and I’m already baking. The desert’s shimmering so much it looks like the world’s about to wrinkle in on itself. The salt pan ended ages ago, giving way to a blistering landscape of sand and scree. Everyone’s on edge, scanning the desert for who knows what. Another sandstorm? More Tin-skins? Some other deadly Arakaanian beast?
I’m sweating in my saddle near the tail end of the line. The hooded robe I was given this morning stinks so bad it reminds me of Roth. My goggles, fashioned from an old Leatherhead gas mask, are lopsided and too tight, but at least they cut the glare. I’m still trying to figure out how this horse business works. We have ’em on Bluehaven, but I’ve never had the chance to ride one. I’m pretty sure this one’s broken. He keeps trying to head-butt the other horses, and whenever I yank on the reins to stop him, the jerk tries to bite me. He’s dirty. Ugly. Irritating. Nobody told me his name, so I’ve decided to call him Scab.
Violet’s riding beside me, cloaked and goggled, too. She named her horse Rex, and he’s perfect, of course. Calm. Polite. Keeps his teeth to himself. “Are you sure you didn’t have a nightmare last night?”
I still haven’t told her about the dream, for the same reason I didn’t tell her about the Specter in the water, back in the Manor: I’m afraid. Afraid of what I am, what I can do, what could happen if I lose control again. The Specters in my nightmare could sense it. I reckon that’s why they Gripped me. They think I’m gonna fail, which makes me as big a threat to the Manor as Roth. If I mess this up, we’re all doomed. Every Otherworld. Every soul. What if they’re right?
I can still feel and see it all. That void in my chest when I knew I’d lost Dad and Violet. The cracking stone. The surging, glowing Cradle Sea. That voice.
Return.
Back in the Manor, the voice was a comfort. It gave me hope when the river creatures were closing in, told me what to do. Now it terrifies me, not least because I have no idea whose voice it is. The Manor’s? One of the Makers’? Po’s, perhaps. And return to what? The Cradle?
Great tip. What do they think I’m trying to do?
“If I did have a nightmare, I can’t remember it,” I lie.
“Hmm,” Violet says. “It’s a shame, really. I know your nightmares are no picnic, but I was hoping we might get another hint of what’s to come. Maybe a nudge in the right direction, like we had inside the Manor. Even you have to admit, they’re handy. They’re a gift.”
“A gift? Uh-uh.”
All those nightmares I had growing up. All those never-ending stone corridors. All those times I was drowning in the Cradle Sea. They were a twisted glimpse of my past, but what about the others? Those people I saw running for their lives. The children screaming and dying. Were they terrible but regular, run-of-the-mill dreams? Or were they things that have happened? Things that are going to happen? Things that are happening, right now, inside the Manor and out? How am I supposed to tell the difference?
“I’d rather dream about pancakes, like you.”
Violet scrunches her face at me. “What?”
“Never mind. Point is, I hate the nightmares, just like the quakes.”
“And, like the quakes,” Violet says, “we need them, whether you like it or not. The Manor’s been calling to you, Jane, all your life. Showing you things. Telling you things. You just weren’t aware of it. But this power inside you—it’s awake now. There’s no going back. You can’t ignore it. Next time the Manor calls, you have to listen.”
“I did listen, remember? The Manor showed me the path to the river and the hall of waterfalls. I followed it—we followed it—the path that led us here.”
“Yeah,” Violet says to herself, looking out at the desert, “here.”
We ride and we ride, and the mountain range doesn’t seem to get any closer. When the suns get too high and the temperature soars even higher, Elsa—having slept off her hangover at last—orders everyone to get off their horses and walk. Luckily, I’ve been given a pair of sandals, but even so it’s too much. All of it. The sweat. The aching legs. The growling hunger and throat-wrenching thirst. I barely even have the energy to swear at Scab anymore. Violet, on the other hand?
“I’ve been thinking,” she says out of nowhere. “Why are we in Arakaan?”
I wipe a trail of sweat from my cheek. “Because the Manor wanted us to find Elsa.”
“Yeah, but why did it bring her here?”
“Because this is the world Roth left for dead.” I glance over my shoulder at Yaku. Guy’s been riding behind us all day. “It’s the last place he’d ever think to look for the second key.”
“There must be more to it than that,” Violet says. “Roth hasn’t returned to Arakaan, but that doesn’t make it safe. This is still enemy territory. Roth’s kept the Manor gateway by the dune sea open all these years, which means he can always return. He doesn’t want to, but he could. The Manor bringing Elsa back here—bringing us here? It’s too risky. I mean, why not seal Elsa off in a nice, green, peaceful world and let her wait for us there instead?”
“Because the Manor’s a jerk?”
“Because there’s something else we’re supposed to do here.” Violet leans in a little closer, lowers her voice. “Think about it. After we get to the Cradle and you heal the Manor, we still have to deal with Roth. If he really is immortal, how do we stop him?”
“No idea.”
“Do you think the Cradle Sea could destroy him?”
“Maybe. Everyone says it’s the most destructive force in all the worlds.” I scratch my head. “Then again, Dad and Elsa swam in it. I did, too, when I was a baby. Nothing happened to us.”
Violet chews her lip, nodding. “The foundation stone binds and protects the Sea, thanks to the Makers’ life force. Stands to reason that the Sea only becomes activated—dangerous and deadly—once it’s separated from the stone. Once the Sea’s released from the Cradle. But unleashing that kind of power is exactly what we’re trying to avoid.”
“Yep,” I say. “Okay, so using the Cradle Sea isn’t an option. Next.”
“Well, we can’t bury Roth under a mountain of rock inside the Manor. He’ll just keep rotting away at the stone and claw his way out, generations after we’re all dead and buried. We can’t doom the future like that. And we can’t turf him back here and let him rule over Arakaan again. These people have suffered enough as it is.” Violet shakes her head. “Everyone says he’s invincible, right? But something or someone hurt him. And it must have happened here, in Arakaan. Before he captured John and Elsa. Before he entered the Manor. I mean, it’s almost like something’s eating away at him from the inside. Some kind of sickness. Maybe a disease swept across Arakaan and wiped out his ancestors, like the Unspeakable Plague nearly did to mine back home. Maybe Roth found a cure just in time and . . . and kept it for himself.”
For an Unspeakable Plague, Bluehaven folk sure do speak about it a lot: the plague that swept across the Dying Lands thousands of years ago and sent the lucky survivors on a voyage across the seas. They were the founders of Bluehaven. Hickory was one of them—just a kid when it happened.
“I dunno, Violet,” I say. “We could throw around theories all day, but Elsa’s been here for ages. If she hasn’t figured out how to stop him, what chance do we have?”
“Who knows? Maybe she started searching for answers but gave up because it was too hard. Or maybe she has found out something.” Violet cocks an eyebrow at me. I can see my reflection in her goggles: two distorted, bug-eyed Janes. “Maybe she needs our help . . .”
“I know, I know,” I say. “I have to talk to her. But something tells me she’d sooner shoot me in the butt with her crossbow than give me a history lesson.”
Violet groans, a look of desperate longing plastered over her face. “Don’t talk to me about crossbows. I miss mine so much. I’d have brought it with me if it weren’t for the second law.”
We enter the Manor unarmed. “But what kind of fourteen-year-old owns a crossbow?”
“The recovering pyromaniac kind,” Violet says. “Winifred started drilling me on target practice after I . . . accidentally set the Great Library on fire. She said it’d help me focus. Every time I got the urge to burn something, I went to Outset Square for some target practice instead. I became a crack shot in no time.” She perks up, struck by an idea. “Hey, you could ask Elsa if I could borrow hers for a bit! And make sure you ask about the Cradle, too. If we’re going to find it before Roth does, we need details—how she and John found it, what the entrance looks like, everything.”
“That’s all, huh?”
Violet shrugs. “Wouldn’t hurt to know more about these Arakaanians, I guess.”
“Okay, okay,” I say. She’s right. I may be the third Cradle key, but Elsa’s the key to unraveling everything else. I hand Violet Scab’s reins, adjust my goggles, and glance at Yaku again. Surprise, surprise, he’s scowling at me. “Be careful,” I whisper. “I’m not sure we can trust him.”
“Your horse or Yaku?”
“Both,” I say, and set off up the line.