Thunderhead (Arc of a Scythe #2)(127)

As his doomsday clock ticked past five minutes, he had to let his hope go. Now, even if the system came back up and the pumps began to blow out the tanks, it wouldn’t matter. They were at negative buoyancy now, and the pumps couldn’t blow out the tanks fast enough to change Endura’s fate.

He went to the window, which had a dramatic view of the island’s eye and the council complex. The council complex was gone now, along with the Grandslayers. Below his window, the wide avenue that lined the inner rim flooded completely as the eye spilled over onto it. What few people were left on the street struggled to get to safety, which, at this point, was little more than a fantasy.

Surviving the sinking of Endura was not a fantasy he was willing to entertain. So he returned to his console, put on some music, and watched as the system’s useless reboot meter ticked from 19 percent to 20 percent.

? ? ?

Scythe Curie ran through the streets that were already ankle deep with water and rising, kicking away a reef shark that had spilled onto the street.

“Where are we going?” Anastasia asked. If Marie had a plan, she wasn’t sharing it, and frankly, Anastasia couldn’t imagine she had any plan at all. ?There was no way out of this. No way off the sinking island. But she wouldn’t tell Rowan. The last thing she wanted to do was rob him of hope.

They ducked into a building a block off the inner rim. Anastasia thought it looked familiar, but in the commotion she couldn’t place it. ?Water was pouring in the front door and down to the lower levels. Marie took a staircase up, and stopped at the door to the second floor.

“Will you tell me where we’re going?” Anastasia asked.

“Do you trust me?” Marie asked.

“Of course I trust you, Marie.”

“Then no more questions.” She pushed the door open, and finally Anastasia realized where they were. They had taken a side entrance into the Museum of the Scythedom. They were in a gift shop she had seen on their tour. There was no one here now—the cashiers had long since abandoned their stations.

Marie palmed a door. ?“As a High Blade, I should have security clearance for this now. Let’s hope the system registered that much.”

Her palm was scanned, and the door before them opened to a catwalk that led to a huge steel cube magnetically suspended within an even more massive steel cube.

“What is this place?” Rowan asked.

“It’s called the ?Vault of Relics and Futures.” Marie ran across the catwalk. “Hurry, there isn’t much time.”

“Why are we here, Marie?” Anastasia asked

“Because there’s still a way off the island,” she said. “And didn’t I say no questions?”

The vault looked just as it had yesterday, when Anastasia and Marie had been given their private tour. The robes of the founders. The thousands of scythe gems lining the walls.

“Over there,” Marie said. “Behind Supreme Blade Prometheus’s robe. Do you see it?”

Anastasia peered behind the robe. “What are we looking for?”

“You’ll know when you see it,” she said.

Rowan joined her, but there was nothing there behind the founder’s robes. Not even dust.

“Marie, can you at least give us a hint?”

“I’m sorry, ?Anastasia,” she said. “I’m sorry for everything.”

And when Anastasia looked back, Scythe Curie wasn’t there anymore. And the vault door was swinging closed!

“No!”

She and Rowan raced to the door, but by the time they got there it had already closed. They could hear the grinding of the locking mechanism as Scythe Curie sealed them in from the outside.

Anastasia pounded on the door, screaming Scythe Curie’s name. Cursing it. She pounded until her fists were bruised. Tears filled her eyes now, and she made no effort to hold them back or conceal them.

“Why would she do that? Why would she leave us here?”

And Rowan calmly said, “I think I know. . . .” Then he gently pulled her away from the sealed vault door, turning her to face him.

She didn’t want to face him. She didn’t want to see his eyes, because what if there was betrayal there, too? If Marie could betray her, then anyone could. Even Rowan. But when her eyes finally met his, there was no betrayal there. Only acceptance. Acceptance and understanding.

“Citra,” Rowan said. Calmly. Simply. “We’re going to die.”

And although Citra wanted to deny it, she knew it was true.

“We’re going to die,” Rowan said again. “But we’re not going to end.”

She pulled away from him. “Oh, and how are we going to manage that?” she said with a bitterness as caustic as the acid that had almost ended her.

But Rowan, damn him, remained calm. “We’re in an air-tight steel chamber, suspended within another air-tight steel chamber. It’s like . . . it’s like a sarcophagus within a tomb.”

This wasn’t making Anastasia feel any better. “Which will, in a few minutes, be at the bottom of the Atlantic!” she reminded him.

“And deep sea water temperature is the same everywhere in the world. It’s just a few degrees above freezing. . . .”

And Anastasia finally got it. All of it. The painful choice that Scythe Curie had just made. The sacrifice she had made to save them.