Alight (The Generations Trilogy #2)(100)

Borjigin cries out, as if he still doesn’t understand that the Coyotl he knew was already gone.

O’Malley dives away from the X, hits the ground and rolls into a crouch at the foot of my coffin.

Old Bishop rattles the X even harder.

“Kevin, come back,” he screams. “Let me out of here!”



Another gun roars. My ears ring. The overpowering scent of wet charcoal fills the room, singes my nose.

I still can’t move. Spingate screams in fear. Gaston is cursing for someone to let him go. Borjigin is crying, the sound somehow heartbreaking despite the insanity and death that surrounds me.

Springers screech a grinding war cry that sets my teeth on edge.

Another gun roars, then another.

O’Malley pops up. He levels his arm on me, using the bars across my ankles to steady his bracelet, and fires off a blast of white light.

I try to kick my feet to throw off his aim, but I can barely move my legs. He drops back down behind the coffin. He’s using me for cover. If the Springers chance a shot at him…

I look left: my Bishop’s arms trembling, every huge muscle popping out, his face scrunched in quiet effort. Past my feet, Old Bishop is doing the same, pulling at the metal restraints that hold him to the X.

Through the chaos, I hear a voice that is not human.

“Hem! Hem!”

Barkah has come for me.

“I’m here! Can’t move!”

The sharp shriek of metal breaking, metal dying—two curved pieces sail through the air as my Bishop’s right hand flies up.

Then a sound almost exactly like it, but this one comes from the black X—Old Bishop’s left leg kicks free. Pieces of broken ankle restraint clatter across the floor.

My Bishop fights with the thicker bar around his waist. He slides his fingers under it, lifts, grunts, but he can’t get leverage.

I remember how Matilda let O’Malley out.

“Bishop, the jewel above your head! Push it!”



He reaches up, fingers frantically searching the fabric above him.

Another Springer gunshot.

Coyotl is somewhere on the floor, screaming in agony.

Old Bishop grunts and jerks, making the entire X-frame rattle. His right foot comes free. He plants his feet on the stone floor and twists his body, pulling hard on his right wrist. I see red-gray blood trickling down from where the shackle cuts into his withered flesh just before that shackle gives way.

My Bishop finds the jewel-button: his restraints pop open. His face sheened with sweat, he leaps off his coffin-table and slaps the jewel above my head, releasing me.

“Free the others,” he says, then launches himself toward his progenitor.

Old Bishop braces and heaves—the entire X-frame rips free from the stone floor. He bends at the waist and twists sharply: the heavy X slams into the oncoming younger boy, sending him tumbling.

I slide off the table and squat down at the foot of my coffin. O’Malley is gone, I don’t see him. The room is filling up with swirling musket smoke.

As my Bishop gets to his feet, his progenitor tears off the last. The two men rush at each other, slam together at full speed, punching and kicking.

A Springer is at my side, pulling me away from the fight. Its skin is a lush purple, but it is not Barkah. I don’t recognize this one. Three yellow eyes plead with me to move.

By the curved red wall, a Grownup I don’t recognize blasts a Springer with white light; even as that one cries out and is torn to pieces, two more Springers leap high and kick out, knocking the Grownup to the hard stone floor. I recognize one of them: Lahfah. Ceiling lights flash off his hatchet as he brings it up and whips it down, again and again, arcs of red-gray blood splashing across the floor and walls.



Musket smoke swirls, stings my eyes, burns my throat.

Three Springer guns roar almost at the same time, bangbangbang—on the platform two pedestals shatter, erupting in flames that wash over Dr. Smith. Her withered body ignites like a bonfire, flames shooting up to the curved ceiling.

Matilda isn’t on the platform….where is she?

The ceiling sparks…the fire catches, it spreads—the ceiling is not stone, but something else. This entire room is about to become a furnace.

The battle rages around me, Grownups fighting for their lives, Springers taking revenge for generations of slaughter.

I stumble to Gaston’s coffin-table. He’s still trapped, and coughing so violently he’s splattering spit on his mouth and chin. I press the jewel above his head—he’s off in an instant, dashing to the wall where Spingate is chained.

I free Borjigin. He rolls off his coffin-table, hits the ground hard. He pushes himself up, starts toward the sound of Coyotl’s screams.

I grab Borjigin, stop him, shout in his face.

“That’s not Coyotl. Your Coyotl is dead! Help me with Spingate!”

Wet-eyed Borjigin stares back at me for only a second. In that brief moment, I see despair in his soul. He wipes his eyes with his sleeve hard enough to turn the skin instantly red, then he nods.

“Stay low,” I say, and push him toward Gaston and Spingate.

The smoke was annoying before—now it’s dangerous, a thin cloud that roils across the ceiling in noxious curls. The Springer next to me coughs hard, wide cheeks puffing out.



Gaston and Spingate are pulling hard on the ring that holds her shackles to the wall, but the ring is anchored in stone and does not budge. Borjigin and I join them—even with all four of us, it makes no difference.