Come Tumbling Down (Wayward Children #5)(25)

“This place is made of straw and stone and fizzy chemicals,” said Sumi. “I don’t understand why the Master didn’t just light a match. Oopsie, there goes my rival, up in flame and fireworks. It would have been easier.”

“Easier, certainly, but it would have betrayed the balance, and the balance is everything,” said Jack. “If he’d burnt the building down around our ears, the other Masters, the other Doctors, they would have descended like all the demons of Hell itself coming for retribution. This is a challenge. The Master seeks complete dominion to hand to his newly minted daughter. That means he’ll seek to take things quickly and cleanly, and without violating any of the traditional rules.”

“Body-snatching is in the traditional rules?” asked Christopher.

Jack didn’t roll her eyes … quite. Christopher realized that she was wearing different glasses now, the frames a little rougher, the lenses a little thicker. They hadn’t been made by a modern optometrist. They’d been milled and crafted here, in this laboratory. “When Jill and I arrived in the Moors, Dr. Bleak convinced the Master to let me live by pointing out that I could be an endless supply of spare parts for my sister. Here, bodies are just another tool, to be stolen or traded as the people in power see fit. Burning down someone’s lab before they’ve been properly vanquished, on the other hand, is rude. Now ready yourselves. We’ve quite a way to go before we’ll see anything akin to safety.”

She turned to Alexis, offering her hands. Alexis smiled and took them.

“I wish you didn’t have to stay behind,” said Jack.

“It’s better this way,” said Alexis. “I can hook myself up to the generators if I start fading, and if the windmill lights are on, the Master’s likely to think you’re holed up in here, trying to forge a new head for Dr. Bleak. Let me buy you time.”

“If the Master returns, run.”

“I promise,” said Alexis. She leaned down, and Jack leaned in, and two of them kissed like they were alone in the room, like no one else were watching.

When Jack pulled away from Alexis and started for the windmill’s rear door, Sumi skipped over to walk beside her.

“I always knew you were more sugar than you pretended to be,” she said blithely. “No one can go through life entirely spice. It wouldn’t taste very good.”

“A person is not a piece of gingerbread,” said Jack.

“Oh, you’re so wrong about that,” said Sumi.

Outside the door was a wagon, half-filled with straw. Jack selected a pitchfork from an array of farming tools, handing it brusquely to Sumi.

“Make yourself useful and fluff the hay,” she said. “Rats sometimes bed down in it during the day, and I would prefer no one get bitten. They carry disease, you know. Horrible vermin. Christopher, with me.”

“What are we doing?” he asked, even as he was moving to join her.

Jack smiled, terrible and thin. “We’re getting the horses. I think you’ll find them to your liking.” She turned and walked away, heading for a low, boxy outbuilding behind the main windmill. Christopher, as she had clearly anticipated, followed.

“We didn’t have horses when I arrived here,” she said. “They were something of a journeyman project for me. I built the first before my tenure at the school, and the second after my return, once I realized how easily Alexis tires. Between the two of them, we can pull a wagon, and that has made all the difference for her in terms of freedom.”

“You really love her, don’t you?” asked Christopher.

“More than science itself,” Jack replied. “If she bade me to flee to the school and leave the Moors to rot in their own effluvia, I’d do it, so long as she agreed to come. I’d even do my best to learn how to live in this body, for all that I can barely resist the urge to flense its skin off with my fingernails in the vain hope that the tissues beneath would be cleaner. Fortunately, she loves me with equal fervor, and would never ask such a thing of me.”

Jack unlatched the stable door, paused, and looked at Christopher. “These are my horses, and are very dear to me,” she said. “Please do not scream.” Then she pushed the door open and went in, leaving Christopher with no choice but to follow.

“Well, this is probably how I die,” he said, in a philosophical tone, and stepped inside.





9?AND THEN THERE WERE HORSES


JACK PAUSED JUST inside to light a small oil lamp. It illuminated the front of the stable, showing bales of hay and a few ratty blankets. The whole place felt like a fire trap. Christopher didn’t say anything. He had to assume Jack knew what she was doing, or this whole expedition would devolve into a nightmare.

It sort of already had. Indoor lightning storms, resurrected girls, and giant, bloody moons were terrifying enough without throwing in headless corpses, vampire lords, and something called a “Drowned God.” Mariposa had never been anything like this.

“Hello, sweethearts,” said Jack, voice high and sweet and nothing like it normally was. “Who wants to go for a little trip?”

“Is that how you’re supposed to talk to horses?” asked Christopher. “I always thought that was how you talked to—oh my God.”

“Yes, well, horse brains in decent condition are harder to come by than you would think. Dog brains are substantially easier.” Jack stroked the velvety patchwork muzzle of the first horse, offering it a fond smile. “It made training somewhat complicated, but they’re generally eager to please.”