Borderline (The Arcadia Project, #1)(101)

They all peered down, as Caryl and I had done, listening to the pitiful moans from below.

Gloria started taking her shoes off. “Someone lower me down,” she said.

“Oh hell no,” said Teo.

“I’ll have to bring ’em up one by one,” she said, already straddling the lip of the well. “If they’re awake, all I have to do is help ’em onto the platform. Tjuan?”

Tjuan glanced skyward, then moved to assist.

“Gloria,” I said numbly. “Wow.”

“Not doin’ it to impress you, sugar.”

The platform swayed sickeningly as Tjuan helped her -settle onto it, and she let out one little “Whoa,” before locking the rope between her thighs and giving Caryl a salute. “Let ’er down,” she said with a cheery grin.

Tjuan reached for the crank.

“Wait!” said Gloria. “Teo, can I have your lighter? It’s awful dark down there.”

Teo hesitated, the bastard, but finally had the decency to hand it over. Tjuan set his teeth and began to turn the crank; it says something about me that even under the circumstances I noticed the flexing of his muscles.

“Everything all right?” called down Caryl after a moment.

“Yeah,” answered Gloria in a thin voice. “I can see them. Yours first, Millie?”

“Please.” There was really no fair way to choose, so I might as well not pretend to be impartial.

No sooner had I spoken than Gloria let out an earsplitting horror-movie scream. The three of us not occupied in holding the crank flew to the edge of the well and peered down. There was not a hint of light; either Gloria had switched off the lighter or she had disappeared into a darkness that was impenetrable by ordinary means.

The screams didn’t stop. Tjuan started to reverse direction, clenching his jaw, but then Claybriar called out hoarsely from below, just loud enough to be heard over Gloria’s screams.

“Wait!” he said. Then after a moment, “Down!”

Tjuan glanced at me—oh right, I was supposed to be in charge. I nodded, a downward stab of my finger the best I could do at communication. Tjuan lowered the platform some more, and after a moment the screams faded to sobbing gasps. I heard Claybriar murmuring quietly, a soothing cadence, but I couldn’t make out the words.

“Get us out of here,” Gloria called up with surprising firmness.

Tjuan wasted no time, arms and back straining as he turned the crank, lifting them both up into the light. Gloria and Claybriar were clinging to each other, she straddling his lap in a way she would most likely have found unseemly under other circumstances. To make matters even more awkward, enough of Claybriar’s essence had drained out of him that his facade was history, and I was looking at six and a half feet of faun.

Foxfeather’s rendition of him hadn’t been half-bad, actually, other than the vapid expression. He had crescent-shaped horns and powerful shaggy legs that bent the wrong way. His bare torso was well worth staring at, and his face looked almost like a caricature of the human version. But it was his eyes that took me aback when they locked onto mine. They were exactly the same. Why this made my scalp crawl, I don’t know.

“You came,” he said.

“I did.”

Claybriar graciously accepted Gloria’s help getting out of the well, though he was probably three times her weight. He approached me warily, his hooves soundless on the sand, as though I might bolt. “My sister,” he said to me. “My sister’s down there.”

“She’s the missing girl you were talking about?” I felt a tightening inside me that was at least two parts fear as he came closer. Something must have shown in my face, because Caryl squeezed my hand. Everyone was watching us.

“The viscount,” Claybriar said, stopping in front of me. “He came to our glade, spoke to us.” His ear twitched. “We weren’t the first commoners he’d talked to. Something about needing volunteers for a rebellion. I got a bad feeling, so I told her not to go, but the minute I fell asleep, she slipped away.”

I couldn’t hurt him any worse, so I reached my hand out to him. When he touched it, his eyes took on a sharp focus.

“It’s you,” he said, in the same wondering way Inaya had. But to me, his hand just felt like a hand, albeit slightly fuzzy on the back.

“I’m your Echo,” I said.

“I knew it as soon as you told me about your fall.” Suddenly his words seemed to come fluently, lacking his former awkwardness. “It was obvious I had an Echo—I could do math, plan events, learn languages—they even let me assist at court. Then a year ago I just lost it. Lost everything. For months. I thought you’d died.”

“I’m so sorry,” I said. “But why didn’t you just tell me the minute you knew?”

“You said you were friends with the viscount and his Echo. For all I knew you were part of their plans. I’m sorry. I should never have thought that.”

“All righty!” Gloria distracted us by saying. Her voice was sweet and forced, like icing from a decorator’s tube. “Back down I go!”

I pulled away from Claybriar. “Wait,” I said to her. “What happened down there?”

“Well, honey, I had to get off the platform so Mr. Claybriar could get on. I don’t have to tell you what that felt like; you’ve touched a Gate yourself.” Was it the light, or was she a little pale?