The Arakaanians gawk and whisper as I pass them. Not even their hoods and goggles can hide their fascination. The kid leading Elsa’s horse stares up at me when I overtake him, mouth gaping. My hand itches. Those all-too-familiar evil wasps swirl around my gut. This is my chance to get all the information we need. If I play my cards right, Elsa might even tell me about my dad. What he was like before they opened the Cradle and all. Before he was Gripped.
“Get back in line,” she says when I’m still three paces away.
Or not.
“Will do,” I say, falling in step beside her. “I just want to apologize first. For running off the other night. I didn’t mean to get lost, I just . . . it was a lot to take in. And I didn’t mean to blow up the shipwreck. Actually, that’s a lie. I did mean to, but only because of the Tin-skins.”
Elsa hefts the crossbow onto her shoulder, stares out at the desert and sighs. “Taw-taws. Out here they’re called Taw-taws.”
“Oh. Okay. Anyway, I was lucky the bomb was there. I assume you folks rigged it up? It saved my skin. Truly. That and the sand dune.”
Elsa stiffens a little. “You jumped from the upper deck?”
Uh-oh. “Um, yeah, but—”
“Did you find anything up there?”
Just your secret place. Your scribbles on the wall.
The etchings of your baby boy.
“No,” I lie. “I didn’t have time to look around. I was kinda running for my life, you know? I’m just glad you found me. Really. So thank you.”
Elsa lowers her goggles for a moment and looks at me. Her eyes are baggy and bloodshot, crusty with sleep. I can tell she doesn’t trust me. She nods at my bandaged hand. “You should let that breathe.”
“I will,” I say. “Thanks.” I glance back down the line of horses. Violet’s leading Scab and Rex a little out of formation so she can watch us. Yaku’s yelling at her but keeping an eye on us too. Closer to hand, the kid’s swiveling his head from me to Elsa and back again, like he’s watching a game of catch. I clear my throat and push on. “Um, why was the bomb there?”
“Roth’s Gorani,” Elsa says. “Leatherheads, I believe you call ’em. They wander through these parts sometimes. Deserters. Gotta protect what’s ours.”
I frown. “If they’re deserters, doesn’t that mean they’re against Roth, too?”
“Maybe. But that doesn’t make us friends.”
“So that’s why everyone’s on edge, huh? They’re worried about a Leatherhead—I mean, Gorani attack?”
Elsa nods. “Not to mention the sandstorms, the Taw-taws, the Boboki . . .”
“Who are they?”
“Rival group. They’ve never been keen on my presence here. Always feared I’d lure Roth back to Arakaan. They used to attack us regularly. Kidnapped Yaku when he was a boy, just to get to me. Wasn’t easy, but I got him back. They’ve kept their distance since then, for the most part. But if word gets out that you’re here? Let’s just say it’s best we get you in and out of Asmadin as quickly as possible. The Boboki are a bunch of thieves and murderers.”
Perfect. More people who want to kill me.
“So when will we get to Asmadin?”
“Late tomorrow.” Elsa nods at the mountain range lurking ahead, stretching from north to south. It looks closer now, come to think of it. At long last. “In a few hours, we’ll reach Orin-kin, an outpost at the edge of the Kahega Range.”
“That’s where you sent Hickory, yeah? To some healers.”
“Indeed. Asmadin’s about a day’s trek from there, westward through the Mulu Pass.”
“Right.” I take a deep breath. Here goes nothing. “Elsa—”
“You have questions,” she says with a sigh. “I know. Ask away, then.”
“Well, how about we start here? How’d you find these people?”
“I didn’t. They found me.” She waves a hand at the desert. “Couple of nomads, way out there somewhere. I was near death. Driven mad by the suns. Stumbling. Rambling. They took me to Asmadin, their ancestral home. Healers brought me back. I can’t remember it all, but I know the Elders questioned me. Pieced my story together before I came to.”
“The Elders?”
“Leaders of Asmadin. Eleven women and men elected by the people.”
“Are you an Elder?”
A bubble of laughter escapes Elsa’s gob. “Gods, no.”
“They understood you, though? They actually talked to you?”
“One of ’em did, yeah. Masaru. He’s a healer. An Elder now, too. Good man. Very good man. You’ll meet him in Asmadin. He helped me find my strength again, slowly but surely.”
Elsa stops there, as if that’s all I need to know. That, or she’s forgotten I’m here.
“Um . . . and then?” I ask.
She swears under her breath. “Then, I started learning their customs, their language. They knew the legend of the Cradle keys, and agreed to help me return to the Manor. When I was strong enough, they took me back out to the flats. We found the gateway again, but it still wouldn’t open. So we built a well and set up camp. Waited and watched. After several weeks, supplies and morale were running low. Everyone would’ve left if it weren’t for the Taw-taws.”
“You were attacked?”
Elsa kicks at a stone. “A whole pack picked up our scent. I saw them first, raised the alarm. Killed half-a-dozen myself. Saved Masaru and the rest of the Asmadinians. That changed everything. From then on the people trust me, respected me as one of their own.” She sniffs. “They said I swooped in like Hali-gabera.”
“Hali-ga-what-now?” I’m gonna have to start writing all these names down.
“Hali-gabera,” Elsa says. “Local legend. Died hundreds of years ago. She’s buried on the eastern side of Asmadin. Lovely tomb. Point is, I’d earned the people’s trust. That’s when Orin-kin was set up as a sort of halfway point. It started small, but it’s grown over the years. People wanting a change from Asmadin. Families devoted to the cause.”
“What cause?”
“Waiting for you, of course. Roth left a hundred years ago, sure, but these people know their lives are still in danger. They figure destroying Arakaan is right at the top of his to-do list once he claims the Cradle. Common theory is he’ll use it as a testing ground. Unleash the Cradle Sea and wipe this world from existence once and for all.”
“No offense, but it doesn’t look like there’s much left to destroy.”
Elsa nods slowly. “This is an old world, yes, but there’s life here—beauty, also—and it’s worth saving. Even I forget it sometimes.” She glances back at the Arakaanians behind us. “I’m not the woman I used to be, Jane. I’ve been here so long I’m more Arakaanian than Tallisian. These people would do anything to protect this world, and so will I. They’re my family now.”
My heart breaks when she says this.
How many times has Dad replayed their reunion in his head over the years? How often has he dreamed of holding Elsa again, kissing her, hearing her voice again, her laughter? He has no idea the woman he knew has lived a whole other life.
Still, I think I’m starting to understand Elsa. After all these years—forty-seven of them, she told me the other night—how could she not change? Escaping to that room on the wreck. Scratching away at the wall. Feeling her old life slip further away from her, day by day, decade by decade, just like Hickory trapped in the Manor. The jungles of Tallis, Dad, their baby boy: they were all reduced to the stuff of dreams. I feel like I should apologize again—for running away, for blowing up the wreck, for making her wait out here so long most of all—but I can’t.
Sorry is too small a word.
“That it, then?” Elsa asks. “No more questions?”
“No,” I say. “I mean, yeah. So many.”
“Wonderful.”
“Can you tell me about the Cradle?”
“Ugh.”
“Maybe if you start at the beginning—”
“Boring.” Elsa waves a hand at me. “We found the Manor gateway on Tallis, made our way through to Arakaan, and got caught by Roth at the edge of the dune sea. He threatened to cut me. Charlie opened the gateway again and let Roth and his army in. They started building his fortress inside the Manor and threw us in a cell. End of story.”
This is gonna be trickier than I thought.
“Well, it wasn’t exactly the end, was it?” I scratch at my ear. Gotta tread carefully. “You were . . . pregnant, right? When you were caught.” Elsa clenches her fists, but I can’t stop now. “Roth left you there for ages while he tried to find the Cradle, but he had no luck, so he went back to see you when you were giving birth, and . . . and . . .”
And something went wrong.
They had a baby boy. He died, Jane.
And here comes the sorry at last, quick and hot and dripping in shame. “I’m so, so sorry, Elsa. I can’t even imagine—”
“Don’t,” she says. “Don’t imagine it. Don’t speak of it. Not a word. Ever again.”
Another awkward silence hangs in the stifling air.
“How did you escape?” I ask after a while. “What did the path to the Cradle look like—the room where the path began? What does the entrance to the Cradle look like, exactly?”
“Too much talking.” Elsa hangs back till the kid with the horses catches up. Starts rifling through her saddlebag, one-handed. “The path, the spike pit, the Cradle—blah, blah, blah.”
Wait a second. “What spike pit? Is that where the—”
“I’m sick of it. Told you. Boring.”
“I know this is tough, Elsa, but I need details. You have to tell me everything.”
“I don’t have to do anything. Ah-ha.” She plucks a bottle from the saddlebag, pops it open with her mouth, spits out the cork, and takes a long swig. “Oh, that’s good.”
The kid twitches his head, warning me to leave.
I nod at Elsa’s bottle instead. “Maybe you should stick to water, huh? I don’t—”
“Enough.” Elsa stops walking. The rest of the group stops, too. “Let’s get something straight. Three things, actually.” She holds up a finger. “First, you may be destined to save the Manor, but while we’re in Arakaan I’m in charge, and I’ll drink whatever, whenever I want.”
“Okay,” I say, but—”
“Second”—up goes finger number two—“there’ll be a celebration at Orin-kin tonight, to honor your arrival. I’d rather focus on the journey ahead, but the Arakaanians have their traditions. Their rules and rituals. We must respect them. Remember, you’re a guest. Smile. Wave.” She glares at me. “Don’t do anything stupid. I’ve worked too hard and waited too long to have my position here jeopardized by a couple of schoolgirls.”
Wow. “Okay, technically, I’ve never even been to school, except that one time I hid in a classroom cupboard, so that comment doesn’t even make sense. And in case you’ve forgotten, Violet and I brought one of the Cradle keys all this way—”
“Which brings me to my third point. You still got the fake key I gave you?”
“Um, no. I kinda”—chucked it away—“lost it.”
Elsa sighs and fishes the true Cradle key—my key—from her pocket. I reach out to take it, but she closes her fist. “Uh-uh. I’m keeping this one for now.”
“But it’s mine.”
“You’re not responsible enough to carry it. You lost the fake one almost immediately. And you’ve lost the real one twice since you left Bluehaven. Your friends told me all about it.”
“Oh, you mean when you interrogated and tortured them?”
“They told me you let the bounty hunter take it, after he pulled you from the forest.”
“I didn’t let him take it. The forest nearly ate us. I could barely even move and—”
“You also let us take the key the moment you got here.”
“You were holding me at gunpoint. You shot me with a dart!”
“Exactly.” She slips the key back into her pocket. “I can’t leave something so important in the hands of someone so easily subdued.”
“Easily subdued?” Now she’s crossed the line. “Excuse me, but over the past week I’ve been half-frozen, almost squashed, semi-digested, and very nearly skewered, shot and drowned. I pushed Roth off a speeding train. Violet shot a bazooka at him.” I point at her. “A bazooka, lady. Then we derailed the train. Together. Roth would’ve gotten his stinkin’ hands on the key ages ago if it weren’t for us. Hickory, too, actually.”
“Hickory is an agent of Roth’s.”
“He was an agent of Roth’s. You better not be lying about those healers, Elsa. Hickory knows Roth’s lair and the Manor better than any of us. If you want to get Dad back—” It just slips out. Dad. Elsa goes rigid, as if the word has given her an electric shock. I wish I hadn’t said it, but it’s too late now. “Elsa . . . you haven’t seen him in forever. I know you had to make a new life here, but don’t you even want to know how he is, or—or what he’s like?”
She whips off her goggles and glares at me. “I’ll ask when I’m ready.” For a moment, she looks so old, so sad, but it’s quickly overshadowed by something else. Something dark and grim that hardens the lines on her face. “I’ll give you the true keys once we’re back inside the Manor. Not a second before.”
I feel like I’ve been punched in the gut.
Now would probably be a bad time to ask if Violet can borrow her crossbow.
“Go back to the end of the line,” Elsa says. “And if you even think about running off again, a pack of Taw-taws’ll be the least of your worries. I promise you that.”