Come Tumbling Down (Wayward Children #5)(28)

She wondered whether it was going to hurt.

She wondered whether she was going to care.

Behind her—far behind her, for she had always been the more athletic of the pair, the more equipped for the rigors of heroism—Kade struggled to keep up. The bracken and briars that seemed inclined to let her pass unhindered snagged at the hems of his jeans. Holes opened beneath his feet, and he stumbled, he staggered, he swore. But he kept running. Sometimes, after all, that’s what must be said to make a hero: the willingness to keep running even after it becomes clear that the entire exercise is doomed to failure. Sometimes heroism is pressing on when the ending is already preordained.

Cora ran, and Kade pursued, until the windmill was a speck in the distance, until it disappeared altogether, and there was only the Moors, and the glaring red eye of the moon, and the vast, alien darkness of the sea.

When Cora reached the cliff she stopped, wobbling at the very edge, chest heaving with the effort of breathing in the unforgiving air. Kade, gasping, staggered to a stop some fifteen yards behind her. He couldn’t run any farther, and he tried to tell himself it was exhaustion, and he knew that he was lying, and he knew he was afraid.

“Wait,” he wheezed, the word half-swallowed by his gasped attempts to breathe. “Cora, wait.”

There was no way she could possibly have heard him. But she turned, and smiled, and it was the most beautiful expression he had ever seen. Heroes would have gone to war for that smile, would have died for even a shadow of its grace.

“It’s all right,” she said, and the wind carried her voice to him, each syllable polished and perfect as a pearl. “Can’t you hear them? They’ve been waiting so long for me to come home. Tell Jack thank you, and that I forgive her. Tell her not to look for me.”

“Cora, don’t do this.” Kade staggered forward, one step, then another, trying to reach her before she did anything that couldn’t be taken back.

“I’m home,” she said, and stepped backward, over the edge, toward the welcoming sea. Her expression faltered—only for an instant, but long enough for Kade to see the terror in her eyes, shining through the glazed, artificial serenity.

He found he had the strength to run after all.

“Cora!” he howled, and dove toward the edge of the cliff. Too late, too late, too late.

She was already gone.





11?UNDER THE EAVES, WHERE SWALLOWS SLEEP


THE TOWN WAS oddly familiar. Christopher snapped his fingers as the gates swung closed behind them.

“I knew I’d seen this place before!” he said. “Didn’t Vincent Price film a movie here?”

“Not everyone who visits the Moors decides to stay,” said Jack.

“Are you saying Vincent Price—?”

“I’m saying there are a great many channels of cultural exchange between the worlds, and I’d prefer not to discuss them here, as drawing attention to ourselves is unwise.”

“Says the girl with the skeleton horse,” said Sumi.

Jack laughed.

The town really did look like something out of a black-and-white horror movie, for all that it was far from monochrome. The houses were painted in brilliant, eye-searing colors, making Sumi the only one who really matched the surroundings. There were little shops, public houses, even an inn with a sign advertising rooms to let. People walked along the narrow sidewalks flanking the street—if they could still be called “sidewalks” when they were made of wood instead of concrete. Christopher thought they might be boardwalks, or maybe promenades, but he wasn’t sure. The nomenclature of architecture had never been his focus.

There was something faintly off about the people. Their eyes were too big and their fingers were too long and when they stopped to watch the wagon rolling by they were too perfectly, profoundly still, like predators lying in wait for their next meal. Sumi stared them down, and one by one they looked away, no longer willing to meet her eyes. She snorted.

“Not so brave after all,” she said.

“Not under these circumstances,” said Jack. “I advise against walking alone down any alleyways. I’m told the public house nearest the docks serves excellent chowder that practically never contains human flesh. I’m also told that ‘practically never’ is not the same as ‘never,’ and it’s better not to gamble with such things. Anyone hungry?”

“I’m good,” said Christopher hurriedly. Jack laughed. It wasn’t a happy sound, not exactly; it was the sound of someone clinging to the last vestiges of sanity and stability with all their might. It was the sound of slipping.

Christopher shivered. No one who sounded that close to the end of their rope could hold on forever. It simply wasn’t possible.

The road led through the middle of town toward a towering edifice that appeared to be part cave and part cathedral. It had been carved from a single spire of blackened rock. Bells tolled in the distance, loud enough to have an almost physical presence.

And there, sitting on the edge of the wooden sidewalk, elbows on his knees and head bowed, was—

“Kade!” Sumi leapt down from the moving wagon and half-ran, half-skipped over to him, her oddly rollicking locomotion carrying her forward with startling speed. She stopped a few feet away, looking at him with a wide-eyed brightness that almost—almost—hid the wary caution in her eyes. “You ran away! Bad boy. Where’s the mermaid?”