Havenfall (Havenfall #1)(22)

A crash.

A scream.





6

It’s still dark, the sky purple-tinged at the edges outside my window.

More screams.

I sit up, feeling around for my lamp in the dark. I’m no stranger to bad dreams, but mine are always the same, with the same ingredients. Mom in her jumpsuit and dead eyes—beautiful eyes, one brown and one green, but with no life behind them—being dragged from a courtroom by faceless men in white uniforms, her limbs dragging on the floor like she’s already given up and died. Or our old house, a thin strip of kitchen—linoleum floor, battered table, walls scrawled with crayon marks—visible through cracks in cupboard doors. The sound of breaking glass and Nate’s scream and my mother’s cry. You can’t take him! Then spilling out of the cupboard afterward, the broken glass and blood covering the linoleum, the streak of red leading back toward the window where a monster disappeared with my brother. Mom in the corner with her head between her knees, keening. Her fingers bloody too, nails broken, like she was trying with all her might to hold on to something before it tore from her grasp.

These are the images I associate with the sound of screams.

These screams, though—they are unfamiliar. Not mine or Mom’s or Nate’s. And there are so many of them. Why are there so many? What’s happening?

Finally my fingertips connect with the lamp, and I manage to turn it on, even though my hands are shaking. I’m still wearing my fancy clothes, my necklace with one of Nate’s silver jacks, my jacket—damp and stained now—and even my shoes. I guess I was too giddy to take them off again after Brekken and I snuck back inside a little before midnight, silencing each other’s giggles with kisses. As my boots hit the floor, more screams—at least that’s what it sounds like—filter up from downstairs.

What the hell is happening?

I grab my phone off the nightstand and run into the hall, but then spin on my heel when I realize how light my pocket feels, the usual jingling absent.

Dread washes over me. My keys are gone. I duck back into my room to see if I’ve left them on the nightstand, but they’re not there either. My stomach turns over.

Something’s wrong.

I have to shove through clusters of sleepy delegates on my way downstairs, their willowy frames wrapped in silk robes or cloaks or blankets. People protest and withdraw as I run by, but I couldn’t care less if they’re in their night things or if they’re wondering why I’m not. More guests are gathered at the edge of the railing of the staircase, trying to see what’s happening below. The screaming has stopped now, replaced by a confused clamor of voices, muffled shouting. I stop at Brekken’s door and knock, but there’s no answer.

“Brekken!” I try the handle—locked. “Open up. This isn’t funny.”

I stand there for a long moment, my heart sinking down through my guts. He’s a soldier now. Whatever people are screaming about, what if he went down to deal with it? Or … A thought—an ugly thought—twists in the back of my mind.

The look on his face in the loft, like he was considering whether to tell me something. And then later: his hands roaming, my waist, my hips, over my jacket, under it.

My keys, gone.

I push the idea away as I run, horrified at myself.

The lower floors—the common area—are emptier, quiet. That makes it easier to hear where the muffled shouting is coming from—the long corridor at the back of the inn, where Marcus’s office is located—and the tunnels with doorways to the other worlds.

It’s an unspoken rule that I’m not supposed to go down here, but I don’t care about that now. The corridor slopes down and curves gently toward the left, toward the center of the mountain, the old-fashioned lamps along the walls doing little to penetrate the darkness.

Willow is emerging from the passage, her face pale. She jumps when I round the corner. It’s clear she’s been pulled out of bed, a silk dressing gown tucked tight around her frame, her hair rising wildly in all directions like black fire. She isn’t wearing makeup, and the green scales glitter on her cheeks.

“What’s going on?” The words leave me in a rush of breath. “Who was screaming?”

I expect her to yell at me, but instead she grabs my arm and hauls me into Marcus’s office, shutting the door behind us.

The room is ransacked, chairs tipped over and drawers and cabinets hanging open. All the lights are on, even the harsh overhead that Marcus never uses. It washes the room in colorless light, making the people standing around the perimeter look haggard and sickly: Graylin, Sal, who guards the doorways, and the Silver Prince. Why is he here—why are any of them here? And—

Marcus. He’s lying on the desk, eyes closed. Panic shoots through me, hot and sudden. For a heartbeat I’m five again, back in the cupboard, hearing Nathan scream; I’m tumbling out into the quiet, seeing Mom sitting in a puddle of blood and broken glass, looking at me with empty eyes.

“What the hell?” I gasp.

Graylin is saying something, standing next to the desk, a protective arm laid over Marcus’s chest. A stunned, lost look in his eyes as they meet mine.

He’s saying something, his mouth moving, but I can’t hear him with the blood roaring in my ears. I’m moving toward Marcus, the room blurring around me, then my foot trips on something and I’m falling. I catch myself on one of Marcus’s built-in bookshelves, wood cutting into my hand, and twist around. Something large, weirdly lumpy, is wrapped in a rug.