A Drop of Night(83)

The pain is all there is now. It’s enveloping me, flapping in my ears like feathery gray wings. “We’re not all bad. We’re not, we—”

It hurts to talk. To breathe.

“We’ve got something else, something you can’t see, but . . . it’s there, it’s just . . .”

I can’t do this. Can’t talk anymore

“. . . one little drop of . . .”

Everything.

Starlight, darkness, divinity, love.

Somewhere far away, I hear Lilly crying. Maybe laughing.

They’re awake! she wails. Jules is awake.

Something cracks.

I’m in the cavern again, hunched on the floor. The butterfly man is arching over me, his face so close I can see the muscles under his skin, layers of bone and sinew, exposed to the air. I wriggle onto my back. Lilly’s sabre is embedded in the butterfly man’s calf. Lilly is hunched at his feet. She looks at the sabre, looks up at the butterfly man. Whirls and runs full speed away.

“Anouk?” she shouts over her shoulder. “Get up!”

The butterfly man pivots. I watch the darkness gathering around him. Brace myself for the explosion, the shock wave that will knock me out for good. It never comes. Havriel is crawling toward us out of the shadows like a huge bleeding slug. The butterfly man is watching him.

“Stop this,” Havriel rasps. “I will give you freedom if that is what you want. I will let you have the children, the palace, anything, but do not let me die. You must be reasonable!”

“I am nothing if not reasonable. That is how you made me.”

“I did everything you asked!” Havriel shrieks. He’s nearly reached us, and I can smell him, a vile, ancient stench, metal and death and rot. I see threads of black in the red dripping along his face, and they’re slithering, squirming like they’re alive. “What more is there? What do you wish for? I will give you a billion corpses!”

“You already have.”

Havriel stares at the butterfly man, heaving. His face is a mask of fear and hate and pain. He gasps and spits between his teeth. One hand goes to his chest, fingers wriggling into his waistcoat. They emerge holding a black cylinder. A red light is sliding up its length, blinking frantically.

A detonator.

He raises his fist.

“Well then,” he growls, and he smiles through the blood, red teeth, ashen lips. “Here are some more.”



“Come ON!” Lilly screams, and I feel crispy, half blind. I push myself up anyway, start dragging myself across the cavern floor. Will is a few feet in front of me. He’s standing unsteadily, cradling his bruised head in his hands. Further back in the darkness, I see Lilly. She’s got Jules by the shoulders. They’re limping toward the metal stairs as fast as they can.

I haul myself upright. The sabre is still stuck in the butterfly man’s leg, reflecting the darkness flowing off his body. He’s starting to twitch. Will looks over at me, confused. I grab his good arm and together we stagger after Lilly and Jules.

We reach the bottom of the stairs. Lilly and Jules have already started up them, and Lilly leans over the railing. “Hurry,” she gasps. “You guys, run!”

And now we’re clattering up the metal corkscrew, on and on. All I can hear is our breathing, the ring of the grating under our feet. Maybe the butterfly man is still talking to Havriel, maybe they’re arguing, but I can’t hear them. We come to the tunnel. Hurry down the walkway, lights blinking on as we pass.

Just keep running, Ooky. Just keep running.

We’re at the pool of black water. We start up a second staircase cut into the stone, the ones Havriel and his henchmen probably took, so that they wouldn’t have to plunge forty into pitch-black water.

We burst out into the salle d’opéra, gasping.

Lilly and I skid to a halt. The boys stop behind us. The woman in the red dress is standing on the stage, right at the center. But she doesn’t turn to us, doesn’t even seem to hear us. She’s facing the theater, her arms spread wide. Her face is tipped up toward the ceiling, like a singer basking in her applause.

Everything is so silent. Deathly still––

I feel the first detonation in my fingertips: somewhere faraway in the palace, a long, pulsating rumble. Dust sifts down from the ceiling high above.

“Who’s that?” Jules mumbles, and we shush him, start running along the orchestra pit toward the pillar with its gold-encrusted shield.

Lilly drags open the panel. Behind it is the mirrored passageway. We start up it. I look back, see the woman on the stage, the curtains wrenching from their moorings and falling, swirling around her tiny form like swaths of deep blue clouds.

Another explosion nearly throws me off my feat. The walls of the passageway are shaking, the glass ringing. Up ahead is a circle of blue metal—a door like a bank vault. A ladder. We start up it. A third explosion, closer this time. Smoke billows up after us, enveloping us. The air is becoming hot. Too hot. The shaft shakes.

“We’re going to make it!” Lilly’s yelling. “We’re going to make it!”

We climb faster. Jules, Will, me, Lilly. Below, the explosions keep coming, endless and teeth jarring. I imagine the ceilings cracking, the chandeliers tinkling and falling into Jellyfish Hall, Razor Hall, Rabbit Gallery. The earth burying everything, swallowing crystal and brocade, the blood and death and secrets.