A Drop of Night(26)

We stagger away from the wires, examining our bodies for wounds. My foot feels like it’s been sawed off. I pull up my pant leg, bracing myself for partial amputation, exposed muscle, the works. I’ve got a cut just above the knob of bone in my ankle. It’s tiny, the size of a fingernail clipping. The definition of anticlimactic.

I collapse against the wall next to Jules. He’s testing his hand, watching it swell red and shiny where it caught his fall. Lilly’s on her knees in front of the wall of wires. Her head’s slumped to her chest, hair hanging lank over her face. I can’t see if she’s hurt. She’s breathing, at least.

I lean back against the wall and close my eyes.

“What do they want from us?”

It comes out in a rasping, grating croak.

No one answers. I roll my head to the side, try to catch Jules’s eye. “I’m serious, what the hell. Why didn’t they just kill us in the mirror room? Or at dinner? Or on the freaking airplane? And why are there traps? Dorf said they could see us, they know we’re here, so why did they stop the wires? Why didn’t they just finish us off?”

Will eases himself down next to us. He has a cut on his arm. One of the long sleeves of his T-shirt is sticking to his skin, soaked dark and glistening. He rips the other sleeve along the seam at the shoulder and starts tying a tourniquet above his bicep, the knot held between his teeth.

“They don’t want us dead,” he says.

I see the barbed nozzle, sliding into Hayden’s skull.

“They don’t want us dead yet,” I say.

Will pulls the tourniquet tight, wincing. Jules has his head between his knees. All I can see of him is his black hair, hanging toward the floor. I feel like throwing up, and I also feel like I want to smack someone, or argue and figure things out, but everyone is just sitting here!

I stand abruptly, ignoring the pain in my foot. “We need to get out of here.”

Jules starts gasping. He’s sobbing, his head still pinched between his knees. Will glances up at me. His eyes are clear and still. He’s not crying like Jules, but I think he might if no one were around.

I look to the golden doors at the end of the hall. They seem to be flaming in the light from the chandeliers, gathering it. “So get up!” My voice bounces through the hall, cold and hollow.

Nobody moves.

I start toward Lilly. I saw Hayden die, too, and I’m all for the four stages of grief and periods of mourning and all that, but I also don’t want to be murdered. I grab Lilly’s wrist and practically drag her to her feet.

“What is your problem?” Lilly sobs. “We almost—”

“Yeah,” I say fiercely. “We almost died, and we’re going to completely die if we don’t get moving!”

As if in response, a series of metallic pops echo behind the walls. Lilly and I freeze. The wall of wires have started sliding back along their tracks. They’re not whirring anymore, not vibrating. It’s like watching a wounded animal drag itself back into its hole. They reach the end of the hall and rise up, coming to rest in their slots above the golden door. Taut. Invisible.

“Will, get Jules,” I snap over my shoulder. “Dorf said they were dispatching trackers from the other end of the palace. That means there is another end.”

Somewhere behind me, Jules speaks, his voice bitter: “You want us to just walk through those doors? Is that your plan? And what about Dorf? What if whatever he warned us about is right on the other side—”

“It’s that or Miss Sei and her gas nozzle, so puzzle it out.”

I’ve got Lilly by the arm and we’re moving quickly across the floor. The golden doors loom, spiny and vaguely surreal, Rodin’s Gates of Hell. They’re like a gold-drenched nightmare—gilt faces, contorted bodies, wings and hooves and claws, all struggling up through the golden mass. Jules and Will catch up, Will supporting Jules even though Jules’s swollen hand is in no way impeding his ability to walk. We stand in a row, breathing hard, staring up at the doors.

“Maybe it’s a trap,” Lilly whispers. “Maybe it’s rigged, too.”

I put my hand against it.

“Maybe,” I say, and push.



It’s not rigged. Or if it is, whoever’s controlling this place decides it shouldn’t kill us. We slip around the golden doors. Will closes them behind us as quietly as he can.

This new room has nine more doors—three in each wall, not including the one we just came through. Everything is bone white. The ceiling, the walls with their curling plaster moldings, the circular table in the center . . . everything. The only color comes from a massive bowl of fruit on the table, a Dutch still life of grapes and oranges and ruby-colored apples, rich and vivid against the whiteness. Nothing else. It’s utterly silent.

I glance around. I’m guessing it’s some sort of antechamber, but it’s not like any I’ve ever seen or read about. It looks drained somehow, desaturated, like an unfinished bit of computer animation. The ceiling is a butterfly again, a white one. This time the eyes are almost closed. Not sleepy. Sly. Catlike.

“They can’t do this,” Lilly breathes, and the words feel like a disturbance, a ripple in the dead air. “They can’t get away with this. Our parents know we’re in France. They don’t know where exactly, but my mom will find out and she is going to dig this place up with a spoon if she has to—”