We’ve come up with a plan. Good one, too, as far as last-minute plans go. Step one—commandeer a truck—has already gone off without a hitch, thanks to Aki. Soon as we sneaked downstairs, he strolled up to the last truck in line, hopped inside, and unleashed hell. The truck shook. A window cracked. Ten seconds later, the door flew open and both Leatherheads came flying toward us, almost dead.
“So glad he stuck around,” Hickory said as we dragged the bodies clear.
Now we’re sitting in the back—shielded by the cloth-top, surrounded by crates of weapons, no less—rumbling along with the rest of the convoy toward the fortress.
Toward Roth.
Leatherheads stomp around the truck at every checkpoint. We hold our breath and grip our weapons tight but pass through each of them undiscovered.
I should be trembling, but a strange sensation’s come over me. A feeling that this is how it was always supposed to be. We’re gonna save everyone. Not just Violet, Yaku, and Elsa, but the rest of Roth’s prisoners, too. I’m gonna find Dad, hug him, free him at long last.
Every passing second brings us closer together.
I snap the chain around my neck and ditch Masaru’s useless fake keys. Grip the arrow tight and run a finger over the tip. It’s so sharp I nearly draw blood. Far as we could work out from Aki’s rattles and hand gestures, Violet threw it to him while she was being captured. Told him to find me. Everything depends on this. We’re only gonna get one shot.
“Let’s run through the plan,” I say.
Hickory’s stocking up on weapons. Knives, guns, grenades, you name it. “Again?”
“Again.”
He sits back against the cloth-top and sighs. “Once we’re through the main gate, Aki’ll follow the rest of the trucks to the garage, beneath the main keep. Violet and the others will be marched to Roth’s throne room, on the upper level of the fortress.”
“Ugh, trust Roth to make himself a throne room.”
“We,” Hickory continues, “will head to the cell block. It’s on the upper level, too.”
I nod. “We free as many prisoners as we can. Arm the strongest and storm the throne room. I’ll distract Roth, make sure his eyes are fixed on me.” I hand Hickory the arrow. “You fire this, but only if you have a clear shot at his heart. Sure you can handle that?”
Hickory tucks the arrow into his belt and pats Violet’s bow, rattling on the floor of the truck by his side. “I’m two thousand years old. Pretty sure I can fire one measly arrow.”
“I’m, like, two gazillion years old, and I’m sure I couldn’t.” I glance at Aki. “Anyway, if we’re seen by any Leatherheads on the way to the cell block—”
“We pretend to be Aki’s prisoners and let him lead the way. Relax, Jane. We’ll be fine. We take Roth down, grab the Cradle keys, free everyone and flee into the Manor. The Leatherheads’ll be too distraught to follow. In fact, I bet a lot of them’ll be glad Roth’s gone.”
I huff out a deep breath and feel that sense of certainty again, a flicker of a thrill. “You’re right. We’ve got this.” Roth’s gonna rue the day he decided to mess with the Manor.
We drive for an hour, maybe two, following the convoy down winding corridors and across pillared halls, through archways and holes blown into walls. I imagine Violet, Yaku, and Elsa bound up together in another truck. I picture Masaru, bouncing along farther up the line, shedding happy tears. Old fool has no idea what he’s gotten himself into.
After a while, I tug at my tunic, fan myself down. “It’s baking in here.”
Hickory shuffles over to a slit in the canopy. “Understandable. Take a look.”
The corridor’s a blur, glowing fiery red. Aki slows the truck to a crawl, and we rumble with the rest of the convoy onto a rusty chain-link bridge strung up through the middle of an enormous hall. There’s a lake of bubbling lava way down below the bridge. Little archways, balconies, and staircases dot the far walls, all of them glowing garishly in the lava-light.
And we thought Arakaan was hot.
Most incredible of all are the statues. The hall’s full of them. Colossal, demonic things rising from the lava all around us, their beastly legs and pointed horns wider than wagons. Some of them soar so high we can’t even see their heads. One snarls up at us from below, its fanged mouth wide enough to swallow a truck whole. Another’s muscular arms stretch across the hall from one side to the other, as if it’s holding up the walls.
“Have you ever seen—”
“Uh-uh.”
“Can you believe –”
“Nope.”
The convoy caterpillar crawls. The bridge sways gently, strung up by a network of huge chains bolted to the surrounding walls. Before Roth came, this hall must’ve been a marvel of the Manor. Now it’s in decay, smoke-stained, and many of the statues are metal-plated, which only makes them scarier.
“Aris must’ve carved them,” Hickory says, “in the Beginning. Maybe it’s some kind of tribute to the fallen gods.”
“The Gods of Chaos,” I whisper.
The gods that Po, Aris, and Nabu-kai tricked into the Manor, whose combined energies clashed and swirled inside the Cradle, creating the hazardous Sea. Whose absence from the Otherworlds enabled life to flourish and thrive. If this is what they looked like, I’m glad the Makers did away with them. I just wish their essence hadn’t remained. The most destructive force imaginable, hidden at the center of all things—our ultimate destination. Lucky us.
We rumble off the bridge and down a new corridor. The air’s so terrible here I can taste it. Burning rubber, coal, and rancid meat. The stench of Roth, lingering like the stench of death.
We’re getting close.
The truck slows. Hickory and I peek over Aki’s shoulders. All we can see is the back of the truck in front of us and the Manor walls on either side, every inch covered in a rough patchwork of metal plates. Roth-proof, like the statues. A gate rattles up ahead. The convoy crawls through.
Aki twitches his head at us. Get down.
The brakes squeal. The truck lurches to a halt. Leatherheads stomp around the truck and Tin-skins bark, competing with the constant clanging of metal on metal, the hiss of steam and the clunk-clunk-clunk of turning cogs. The crack of a whip. A scream.
“No turning back now,” Hickory says. “We’re here.”