Echo North(28)

“Pleasure to meet you, Echo. Now, stay close and try not to make any noise. I don’t know about you, but I have no intention of sticking around until dawn.”

I gulped, and followed him over to the cell door. The lock seemed to give him more difficulty than the cuffs had. He fiddled with it for a long while, muttering and cursing under his breath.

I studied him as he worked. He looked younger than I’d first thought, just a year or two older than me. He was lanky and tall. His blond hair curled over his ears; his shoulders were strong beneath his white linen shirt. He wore tall black boots and tight pants, and he smelled like rich earth and sun-warmed stones.

“I read a book once about a girl called Echo,” he said, jiggling the lock. “The ordinary kind of book. She was in love with a god who loved only his reflection, and she wasted away into nothing until she was just a voice in the wood, calling his name for all eternity.”

“That’s horrible.”

His lips quirked. “I suppose it is. Ah. There!” The lock sprung free, and Hal creaked the door open. He peered out into the passageway, then beckoned me to follow.

We crept out into darkness. Somewhere, water dripped, a man sobbed, another prayed.

“This way,” Hal whispered. He grabbed my arm and tugged me through a narrow door. The ceiling was so low I had to duck. I felt like a mole, burrowing through the earth. “Not much farther now.” The passage grew too close and tight for any conversation, so I focused on following him, my heart yammering away in my throat.

And then, just when I didn’t think I could take it anymore, we burst out into cool starlight, whispering trees, freedom.

Hal pulled me to my feet, his warm hand circling mine an instant longer than necessary before he let go. I shook dirt from my hair and spun in a circle, laughing.

He grinned. “We should escape from certain death more often.”

I glanced behind me. “I do feel sorry for the others. Does the queen kill them all, in the morning?”

“If I knew, would you want me to tell you? I wouldn’t want to spoil your reading experience.” He winked at me.

I gave him an exasperated glare. “If I’d thought this story wouldn’t have a happy ending, I would have read something else.”

His blue eyes locked on mine, suddenly serious. “Must you always know a story ends happily before you feel equal to beginning it?”

I stared at him, my heart pulsing insistently in my neck. I thought of my promise to the wolf in a snowy wood, of knife-sharp crystals and a whirring clock behind an obsidian door. A moth flickered past us in the moonlight, and I wondered what kind of story I was in. “Sometimes the adventure is enough.”

Hal smiled. “Adventure is all I live for. Come on!” And he grabbed my hand and tugged me out of the path of our escape tunnel, just as the ginger-haired man and two others from the hunting party came wriggling through. A half-dozen of the queen’s soldiers arrived in the clearing, hoofbeats thudding on hard earth. They drew their swords and circled the escaped prisoners. Hal pulled me behind a tree. We crouched there together.

One of the soldiers hauled the ginger-haired man up by his doublet and spat in his face. “You don’t deserve to live until dawn. The queen is coming for you now.”

“Let her come! I am a prince of my people, and the moon’s faithful servant. She cannot touch me.”

“He’s right,” whispered Hal. “But he’s the only one who knows it.”

I glanced over at him—his grin was back. “You have read this book-mirror before!”

“It’s one of my favorites,” Hal confessed. “The queen has been terrorizing this kingdom for centuries. If anyone crosses her, she kills them. It’s a very involved process. She slits your throat and then drinks your soul out of your ear—it’s how she stays so young. But the prince has been preparing for this his whole life. He’s drawing her out to meet him here, in the moonlight, where he is more powerful than she is. It’s all very exciting, if rather ridiculous.”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “You are rather ridiculous.”

He winked at me again. “Are you ready to run?”

“What?”

That’s when one of the soldiers spotted us, his blade flashing toward our hiding spot.

“Run, Echo!” cried Hal. He grabbed my hand and we dashed into the wood. I gulped mouthfuls of air, giddy and frightened, the soldiers hard on our heels.

I tripped on a protruding root and tumbled away from Hal, who looked back just as the soldier grabbed him. “It was nice meeting you, Echo!” he called, gleeful as ever. “I hope to see you again!” And then he shouted a word at the sky and winked out of existence.

The soldier cursed, and turned to me.

“Library!” I said frantically, “I’d like to stop reading now!”

The mirror wavered into being, much slower than the soldier. He seized my shoulder, hauled me to my feet.

I wrenched out of his grasp and threw myself toward the mirror.

I fell hard on the library floor in a tangle of arms and legs, my lungs still screaming for air after all that running.





CHAPTER THIRTEEN

LIFE IN THE HOUSE UNDER THE mountain began to settle into a quiet rhythm.

Each morning I woke to an empty room, ate breakfast alone, and then stepped out into the corridor where the wolf was waiting for me. We paced round the house together, checking bindings, feeding snakes, watering plants. We loosed golden birds with red wings from their cages, allowing them their freedom for the day—we only had to remember to lock them in again at night, or they would turn into dragons and try to burn the house down. (“It’s not their fault,” said the wolf. “I like to give them what happiness I can.”)