A Drop of Night(48)

We stop dead in the middle of the room.

You hope we’re doing well? What are you, a holiday card? It’s like shooting someone in the chest and then asking if they’re hurt. No, we’re not doing well, FREAKHEAD, thanks for asking.

Dorf doesn’t miss a beat. “I’m sure you’ve noticed you’re not quite alone down there.” His voice was probably icy smooth when they recorded it, but it pipes in tinny, the flow interrupted by a steady sequence of ticks and fizzes. “You’ve caused quite a bit of trouble. Clever of you to cut the camera feed.”

“What?” Jules says. Looks over at me. I stare back, shoulders raised in a shrug.

We didn’t cut the camera feed. Did we? We smashed a few lenses in that big hall with the razor wires. That’s it.

“I want to inform you that your continued movement through the palace is an exercise in futility. Even if you were to reach the surface, you will find the world closed to you. Your parents have already been informed of the unfortunate circumstances in which all of you were killed in a plane crash over the Atlantic. The media is running the story. Debris has been found. Your families will be paid a generous settlement.”

“Are they serious?” Lilly whispers.

“So you see, it might be best to accept circumstances as they are. We’d like to make a deal with you. If you are getting this message, if you are still alive—and we’re fairly sure you are—come to the salle des glaces. The hall of mirrors. We’ll meet you there.”

“They think we’re dead?” Lilly says, full on panicking now. “They actually think we’re dead?”

She looks like she’s about to cry, and I feel sorry for her. She loves her parents like crazy. They probably love her like crazy, too. How awful must that be, knowing they think you’re gone forever when really you’re just lost and trapped and all you want is to get back to them?

Will and Jules have gone really quiet, too.

We hurry through the candy-box room’s cloud-blue doors.

They slam behind us. We’re in an antechamber of some sort, a cloakroom judging by the hundreds of polished oak drawers and cupboards lining the walls. The little desk in one corner. The voice comes on in here, too.

“Anouk. Will. Lilly. Jules. I hope you’re doing well––”

The message repeats itself. I can hear it on the other side of the next set of doors, too. We throw them wide.

Behind me I hear: “Oh, and to be clear . . .”

We missed a part.

“. . . this is not a request.”

Will closes the doors behind us. We’re standing in a vast, pale hall, almost as big as razor hall. A ballroom.

“These messages are being transmitted in a staggered pattern throughout the palace. If it’s a trap room, we have programmed it to trigger within twenty seconds of this message’s transmission. That should give you enough time and encouragement to move. You’ll have only one safe direction to travel. Toward the salle des glaces. We will be waiting.”

I pivot. The floor is a checkerboard, white and black.

Every black panel has a butterfly etched into it.

Every white one a glaring, angry eye.

“Trap room,” I say stupidly. “Trap room—”

We start running, pelting toward the opposite end, but the speakers are off now. The clock is ticking. Twenty seconds. We can do this. The tall double doors are eighty feet away.

My legs pump. I throw myself forward and the air rushes in my ears, streaking my hair back from my face.

We reach the doors with ten seconds to spare. They’re locked.

No. No way.

A shudder flies through the hall. I can feel it in my entire body, an arthritic clicking, skittering behind the walls. And now every butterfly panel in the floor flips up.

“Back!” Jules screams. “Back!”

We whirl, sprinting for the other end. One panel opens right in front of me. I leap. Skid to the side to avoid another.

Jules is shoving himself to his feet. Running again, limping.

This isn’t happening. We’re not dying here, right when we were making progress.

My lungs burn. I run faster, barely manage to dance around one of the holes in the floor. Something’s rising out of it. Glass globules, floating on thin wires, like delicate balloons. They shimmer coldly, poison blue.

“They’re not going to kill us,” I whisper to myself. “They need us for something; they’re not going to kill us—”

The glass balloons are drifting up by the dozens. Some reach hip height; others rise higher, diffusing the light and throwing it down like iridescent jellyfish. They begin to sway, ringing softly, piercingly.

The one nearest to Will bursts with a musical pling! A cloud hangs where the glass was. Blue, spreading. Will swerves to the side. Whatever is in that globe got on his arm. His sleeve is smoking.

The hall is full of the balloons now, hundreds upon hundreds, swaying gently. They’re so close together, almost touching. I can’t run anymore. I’ve slowed to a walk, slithering between them. They’re shifting against my thighs, bubbling around my shoulders. Pling! I hear, somewhere close by. Pling!

Fifteen feet to the door. Only fifteen feet.

“It’s burning me,” Will mutters, somewhere to my left. “It’s burning me!”

A globe brushes my cheek. I feel like I’m choking, drowning in a clinking glass sea. Something pops close to my ear. I feel a prickle. The sudden itch of a million tiny crystals, and now wetness. Blood?