Come Tumbling Down (Wayward Children #5)(29)

“She fell.” He raised his head, looking through her more than at her, like he was staring at some distant, indescribable horizon. “She ran right to the edge of the world, and then she stepped off, and she fell. She didn’t scream. She just went.”

“The Drowned Gods called to her,” said Jack, flicking the reins and urging the horses to a halt. “It was always a possibility. It’s very sad, but we don’t have time to sit around grieving when there’s a monster to be defeated.”

Kade stared at Jack for a single long, frozen moment. Then he lunged to his feet, grabbing her by the front of her shirt and yanking her off the wagon. She didn’t fight him or resist. She just allowed him to pull her toward him, legs dangling, expression cold.

“I warned her,” she spat. “I told her there were shadows in the sea, I told her the Drowned Gods might know her name, and she came anyway, because she didn’t want to be left out of an adventure. This isn’t an adventure to me. This is my home, my life, my future. I warned her and she came anyway. Break my sister’s jaw if it makes you feel better. But be aware that there are worse things in the Moors than the sea, and all of them will come for you if I can’t state my own challenge.”

Kade grimaced. “You really are a monster,” he said, and let her go.

Jack caught herself on the edge of the wagon, barely avoiding a tumble into the dust, and straightened up, adjusting her collar with unshaking hands. She kept her eyes on Kade the whole time.

“I never claimed to be anything else,” she said, before climbing back into the driver’s seat. “Come along. We’ve much to do, and time is short.”

Kade and Sumi climbed into the back with Christopher. Jack flicked the reins, and they were away, continuing toward that blackened spire.

Red-robed acolytes appeared as the wagon neared its destination. They melted out of the nearby rocks with an air of casual, implacable menace. Hoods hid their faces, and their hands were empty, which was somehow worse than them being filled with weapons. Weapons, at least, were predictable; weapons made sense. A sword was just a knife with delusions of grandeur. A trident was a really big fork. This …

“What are they going to do to us?” asked Christopher.

“Nothing, unless they decide we’ve offended the Drowned Gods, which virtually never happens.”

Kade made a wordless snarling sound. Jack ignored him.

“The Drowned Gods are amiable monsters,” she said. “They sleep, and dream of worlds where fire is a forgotten impossibility, and occasionally they wake long enough to eat a few dozen villagers before going back to bed.”

“Wait,” said Christopher. “Are you saying they might feed us to their gods?” The question of whether the Drowned Gods might have eaten Cora was left mercifully unvoiced.

“Don’t be silly,” said Jack. “We haven’t earned the honor.” She pulled on the reins, bringing Pony and Bones to a halt, and called to the nearest acolyte, “Jack Wolcott, apprentice to Dr. Michel Bleak, and friends, here to see the High Priest about a little problem we’re having. Will you please permit us to enter?”

The acolyte made a garbled hissing sound. Jack rolled her eyes.

“That may be so, but we don’t have time for that, and your High Priest won’t be pleased if you keep us here long enough to endanger my chances. There’s a challenge beginning, and the entire protectorate is at stake. Your High Priest enjoys cheese, vodka, and fresh bread, none of which you’re very good at making here. If no one buys your chocolate biscuits, how will he be able to purchase his necessary luxuries?”

The acolyte repeated the terrible hissing and stepped aside. The other acolytes followed suit. Jack nodded, pleased.

“I thought that might be your decision. Have a lovely evening.” She flicked the reins, urging the horses toward the terrible maw of the black cathedral.

Sumi cocked her head. “Why is the village of scary fish-people where you get your chocolate biscuits?”

“It has something to do with shipwrecks and the tides, and to be quite honest, I don’t know. Every time I ask Dr. Bleak, he tells me it’s impossible to dissect the sea and orders me to leave it alone.” Jack’s face fell. “I suppose I’ll have to learn, if we can’t resurrect him. I suppose it’ll fall on me to be the one who knows.”

“A little knowledge never hurt anybody,” said Sumi.

“Perhaps not. But a great deal of knowledge can do a great deal of harm, and I’m long past the point of having only a little knowledge.”

Conversation died then, as the black cathedral swallowed them all alive. It didn’t move in any way in the course of accomplishing this feat; it simply lay in wait, the perfect predator, and let them escort themselves through its jaws.

The stone closed in around them, moist and jagged and dripping, drops of seawater falling from the vaulted ceiling to land on their arms and in their hair. Dots of bioluminescence lit the walls and spangled the dangling stalactites, which hung like so many vast, sharpened teeth. Jack drove blithely on.

“Who built this place?” asked Christopher.

“That’s a theological question,” said Jack. “Science says no one built it: erosion and time did the bulk of the work, and then a few faithful stonemasons came in and cleaned up the rough edges to make it suitable for their liturgical needs. Faith says the Drowned Gods are ageless and eternal, and could very easily have shaped the course of erosion while in this area, guaranteeing their faithful a place to worship.”