Masaru and the others are marched out of the garage. We can hear Violet giving them hell, kicking and swearing. A siren blows, and the rest of the Leatherheads clear out quickly, boots like rolling thunder. Once the coast is clear, Aki hops out of the truck, opens the back flap, and hands Hickory and me a pair of shackles each. We slip them around our wrists, clasped but not bolted—in front of us, not behind our backs.
“Ready?” I ask Hickory.
“Ready,” he replies, and we duck outside.
The garage is big, filled with trucks and supplies. There’s even a rusty old tank. Every bit of stone’s covered in that patchwork of rusted steel, as if an Otherworld of metal has crept through a weakened gateway and taken over, like the lava and the snow.
It’s eerily quiet.
“We’re beneath the main keep,” Hickory whispers, handing Aki the bow and shotgun.
“Keep your gas mask on, buddy,” I say, gesturing to make sure Aki gets the point. “Stay close behind us. If we’re spotted, act like you’re turning us in. When we see Roth, hand Hickory the bow—he’ll take the shot. Hickory, you still got the arrow?”
“No, I threw it into the lava—of course I still have the arrow.”
“Just checking.” I take a deep breath, scan the area. “All right. Let’s go.”
We head through an archway and sneak up a narrow metal-plated stairwell. It’s a long climb. That rancid stink gets worse the higher we go. We pause at every new flight, every archway, but there are no Leatherheads in sight. Makes me even more nervous.
“Quick question,” Hickory mutters. “What if I miss?”
“What do you mean?” I whisper-shout. “You said you wouldn’t.”
“Yeah, but . . . what if I do?”
“Then I’ll kill you myself.”
He plucks the arrow from his belt and grunts. “Fair enough.”
We reach the top of the stairwell and creep down a dark corridor. When we pass an open balcony, we’re granted a view over the central keep. A dirty old hall ten stories high, dotted with archways and galleries, topped by a crumbling dome held together by disjointed metal beams. Machines and barrels of coal litter the floor down below—inactive conveyor belts and drums of newly crafted weapons—all circling a clearing in the center.
The place is deserted.
“Over there,” Hickory whispers, pointing to the right of the hall with his shackled hands.
A crooked structure of rusted steel has been built against the far wall. Stationary platforms and pulleys scale the wall beside it. There’s a line of tiny, barred windows at the top.
“The cell block.”
Down the corridor we go. Up another flight of stairs. Still no Leatherheads, no Tin-skins. Nothing but empty chambers and a deep, discomforting silence.
“Something’s wrong,” Hickory mutters. “This is too easy.”
“No turning back now, remember?” I say.
Aki lifts his mask. He looks scared, too. I give him a reassuring nod.
We sneak up an enclosed ramp into the cell block. The structure creaks and groans beneath our feet. It’s dark. Reeks of something other than Roth. Stale pee, sweat, and fear. We stop, let our eyes adjust. See two rows of single-celled cages slapped together on either side of a narrow walkway. They’re all empty. Chains dangling, doors ajar.
“I’m telling you, Jane, this isn’t right,” Hickory says.
“Throne room.” The wound in my palm throbs. “Now.”
Hickory scans the empty cages again, grips the arrow tightly. “Aki, stay close.”
We move through some kind of guards’ quarters and sneak back into a metal-plated Manor corridor. There’s an open door ahead. I peek in.
The throne room’s empty, too.
We step inside, blasted by a wall of heat. The whole metal-clad chamber’s bathed in lava-light. Roth’s throne is ugly: a hulking black metal thing. I spit at it when we pass by. The air’s so thick with his stench I can hardly breathe. We must’ve just missed him.
The balcony across the room overlooks a pillared hall filled with broiling lava. There’s a lavafall way off to the left. Looks like a giant, glowing tongue lapping at the lake. I wipe the sweat from my forehead, turn around.
“Where the hell is everyone?” I ask.
That’s when we hear it—BOOM, BOOM, BOOM—a menacing beat echoing through the fortress. A metallic clanking and stomping, back toward the keep.
Me and Hickory ditch our shackles. Aki click-clacks at us—tries to stop us—but we’re already running towards the sound, out of the throne room and down the corridor, past the cell block to an open gallery of metal-plated archways overlooking the keep.
I can’t believe my itching, watery eyes.
Leatherheads are marching through every archway of the lower level, every door, beating their weapons as they gather around the barrels and machines. And there, standing in the middle of them all, staring up at us with those cold, cold eyes, is Roth.
The furious tide stirs in my gut. My palm prickles. Five people are kneeling before him, gagged and bound. Masaru, Yaku, Violet, Elsa, and—
“Dad.” He’s hurt. Slumped forward, swaying slightly. His shirt’s sweat-stained and splattered with dried blood. His shaggy, graying hair’s flowing down over his face.
Roth signals to his troops. They stop clanking and stomping, and more Leatherheads appear in the gallery around us, barging through doors and clambering over the edge of the keep, rifles raised and ready to fire. One grabs Hickory and throws him to the floor. The same Leatherhead grabs my right arm, pulls it firmly behind my back, pins me against a nearby column, and starts patting me down.
I’m about to fight back, when the Leatherhead slips something up my sleeve.
Something long and thin, with a very pointy end.
The arrow.
“Aki?” I whisper, flushed with relief.
He rattles his throat ever so softly in my ear, then snarls for show. Spins me around, grabs my hands and shackles them, not behind my back, but in front again. I imagine him winking a black beady eye at me behind his gas mask. Because he hasn’t bolted them properly.
I can still do this. Aki ditched the bow to blend in, sure, but there’s another way. Elsa told me how, back in the watchtower of Orin-kin.
When we’re shoved onto one of the wooden platforms, it isn’t despair I feel. It isn’t fear. It’s something else. Something powerful and real.
It’s hope.