Evan Burl and the Falling, Vol. 1-2 (22 page)

"I shouldn't have taken the book. I'm sorry. I'll do whatever you ask."

"Execute Evan Burl—" He collapsed. A moment later, Mother appeared, her clothes and skin charred, but somehow she had managed to survive the blaze. She gazed with stone eyes at Papa lying on the floor. I saw blood on her hands. But what about the shadow? Could Mother be working with it? Could Mother be the shadow?

Mother had been arguing with Papa. Sophia. The shadow. Ani. They all knew something I didn't. Like they were planning something. Something horrible. And somehow, Papa knew. He had planned for this. That's why he let me find out about Evan Burl. He wanted me to make sure the job was done after he was gone.
 

Stepping over Papa's body, her eyes found us.
 

"Claire!" She rushed to the window.
 

"Don't touch me," I said.

"Help me then!" Anastasia screamed.

Mother ignored Ani and reached under my arms, but her hands were slippery with blood. A beam broke free from the ceiling and landed on Mother's back. Crumpling to the ground, she caught fire. Flames raced through her lacy evening dress, catching in her perfect golden hair. She screamed.

The whole building began to shake. Anastasia appeared at the window. How did she get into the room?
 

"You pushed past when Mother was trying to save me," I said.

"You always loved that you were their favorite," she said. The flames licked up her back. She didn't scream. The bracelet on her arm pulsed slate and dusk, inhaling gleam from the flames.

"You should have made Papa save me first," she said.
 

"Help me up, Ani."

"We're all going to die. Someday." She seized my wrists. "You first." She threw me backward. And as I fell, I glimpsed Papa floating in the middle of the inferno. Then, an explosion.
 

It started inside him, right where the dagger pierced his chest. An earthquake erupted. Yet, no sound. Beginning with his body, everything around him—walls, chest-of-drawers, carved stone statues, glass—even light, was pulled to that single point. An exploding star in reverse. I blew backward on a wave of rays, just outside the explosion's grasping fingers.
 

It almost felt like I was floating on a pillow of thin air.

Propelled by the explosion's force, a ship riding the crest of a wave; I plunged into the smoky fog that rose from the earth. What was left of Anastasia's room disintegrated into dust as a shockwave blew out from my Papa's chest. The book lifted from my pocket, floating away just out of my grasp.

Something fell above me. Papa. The explosion was just light, his body had been spared. He was alive. Barely.

"Evan Burl," I whispered, "I've been talking to him with the book. He asked me about the falling."

"Break the vialus and you will see the falling for yourself."
 

My hand found the trinket on my wrist, the one shaped like an hourglass.

"How do I break it?"

I saw the world rushing up reflected in Papa's eyes.
 

"Let me." He snapped his fingers. A vialus appeared. He pushed it at me, it bounced off my chest. The glass burst. A sound like sucking wind and crackling lightning. Smoke curled out in wisps, but it was carried upward by the heat of the pyre. It burrowed into Papa. And none was left for me.

His eyes filled with horror. "No!"

The clear midnight sky, like a jacket wrapped around the world, unzipped itself, revealing a coral sunset beyond. A second setting sun pierced the darkness like streams of red glow through broken clouds. Rushing wind yanked at his bones, his skin turned to vapor. Then he was taken away, sucked into the night as the distant world closed around him.

I opened my mouth to scream, but no sound came out. The ground rushed up at me, too fast to escape. Squeezing my eyes shut, I realized this isn't how the dream begins. This is how it ends.

This is how I killed Claire Amadeus.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

Evan

Friday

5:35 pm

5 hours, 14 minutes until the falling

"Is it possible, I mean, do you think you're my sister?" A mocking voice rang in my ears. The sound struck my head like a pry bar. I sat up. The world lurched sideways. I couldn't focus past the thick rusted bars that surrounded me. I tried to remember the dream I'd just been pulled from. The falling was different this time—I saw my father above me. And then, at the end, I died.

"I want to help you," Yesler said, "I'm trying to stop Papa from hurting you."
 

Yesler was reading my conversation with Claire. A face leered down at me. I squinted my eyes. Yesler emerged from the blur. I grabbed through the bars. He held the book out of my reach.

"Good thing your daddy had the sense to make a coop for freaks like you."

Through the pounding in my head, other sounds became clear. Grinding gears of the finishing clanker. Hissing of the boiler's steam pipes. Roaring of the furnace.
 

I threw my weight against the bars.
 

 
Yesler grinned. "No one can bend 'em. Not even you."

There must be a way out, a door to open, a lock to unbolt, but my mind felt only emptiness. My sapience was gone. Missing. With a pain in my chest, I remembered who sat in the cage with me. I turned slowly around. Pearl leaned against the bars, eyes closed, so near she could strangle me if she just reached out her hands. My heart went cold.
 

"Took Ballard all day to pull this coop from the dungeon. Guess we don't have to worry about you no more."

I reached out with my mind, trying to twist Yesler's neck. My head swam, pulsing with burning pain. I gripped the bars to keep from falling over.
 

Yesler bared his teeth through the hole in his mask. "Can't do your tricks no more, can you?"
 

The cage was robbing me of sapience. Yesler disappeared. I slumped against the bars. The real world faded in and out with the rhythm of a grinding belt. I closed my eyes and concentrated; someone was watching me. I looked at Pearl and thought I saw her eyes snap shut.

I forced my eyes shut again, felt inside the bars with my mind—my skull pounding—and traced them, one by one. No cracks, no seams. I reached with my hands, heaving the bars apart. Cakes of rust crumpled off. My brain screamed, my forehead broke with sweat, but the bars didn't budge.

I thought you weren't using sapience.

A voice startled me. "Evan."
 

I pushed my face against the cage. A face swam from the blur.
 

"Henri?"

"Shhh."

The roof seemed to be crushing down on top of me. I pushed my hands against it. "You're still alive! The affliktion—"

"Don't worry about that."

She started to evaporate into the fog. I thrust my hand through the bars and grabbed her wrist. "Wait! Last night. You had a rash—"

She shook her head. I tried to focus on her but couldn't see well enough to be sure. Had I imagined it all? "What about the skull?"

She hesitated. "Mazol took it."

"You gave it to him?"

"He said he'd kill you if I didn't. For what it's worth, you were right about Pearl...." She clutched my hand through the bars then whispered, "remember who you are. You're good. They're going to try to make you think terrible things." She glanced over her shoulder. "I have to go."

Henri's hand slid out of mine, and she melted into the blurry fog that surrounded me. I heard the sound of fabric scraping against bronze. Pearl shifted. A rush of voices hit me like a wall, one rising, another falling.

"Watch the brakes," someone said.

"You're late," said another.
 

"I had to take the long way."

"Evan's crate is blocking the stairs."

I couldn't be sure if they were really talking at the same time, or talking at all.
 
Maybe I was dreaming.

"You said you would let him go," Henri said.

A murmur came in reply—my uncle?—but too clouded to understand.

"He's not well," she said. "I think he's dying."

Someone answered—the voice belonged to Mazol—but I couldn't hear his words.

"I'm not doing this anymore," she said.

I swallowed. My ears popped.

"You'll do as you're told," Mazol said.

"You're not keeping your end of the deal."

A chorus of other voices flooded the conversation, making it impossible to hear what Henri and Mazol said next.

"Take it, quick!" someone yelled.

"Not that high, not that high."

"All right, done up here."

"Keep it moving."

The voices got louder and louder until my head wanted to break. I curled into a ball, my hands pressed over my ears. "Stop!" I yelled aloud. Everything went silent.
 

Lowering my hands, I listened, searching for Henri. Slowly, her voice grew in my mind.
 

"He's starting to figure it out," Henri said.

"You better make sure he don't," Mazol said.

"What if I can't"

"It'll be the belt for you, and worse for him."

Other voices crowded in.

"Do you see that?"

"Something is up there."

"What are you all staring at?" Mazol yelled.
 

"It's falling," someone said, also not in my head.
 

"Look, through the ceiling."

"It's getting bigger."

I pulled myself to the bars. Everything became clear. Mazol and Henri stood fifty feet away at the top of a staircase. Ravenna and Gertrude and others leaned over handrails; Parkrose and Vashion stood in the center of the room; all stared up at the glass ceiling. Ballard and Yesler had stopped to see what the others were looking at.
 

I heard movement behind me. Pearl. One of her eyes flittered. I turned back to the sky, past the blazing furnace, past the lake-sized Caldroen filled with boiling water, past the six levels of walkways and balconies filled with clankers, past dozens of nickel spiral staircases, all the way to the expansive glass dome that capped the hollow tower and to the painted sky beyond.

An orange blotch sparkled. My eyes lost focus. Staggering, I fell against the bars. The room plunged into a muffled quiet, like my head had been dipped underwater. The clankers spluttered to the point of explosion, yet the machines made no noise.

Incomprehensible shouts broke through the clogged silence. I stared up, blinded by light. Sight came and went. Ravenna shielded her eyes. Roxhill backed against the wall. Their mouths moved, but their voices came later, like thunder rolling a long breath after lightning strikes.

"Watch out!"

A deafening crash reverberated through my body, splitting my vision into two blurry images that danced before me. They snapped together; I saw clearly. The glass ceiling imploded.
 

Through it, fell a girl.

Glass rained down, striking each level of the iron walkway. I jumped on Pearl to shield her from the glittering razors until the downpour ended.

I peered up. The girl was still falling.
 

Her long silver hair floated as if underwater. Her body made billowing waves through the dusty air. Her dress flickered with flames, reflecting the burnt orange sky. I thought she might be flying. If I could fly like that, I might have saved Pike.
 

She collided with the boiler, where the tank bulged out like a fat man's belly. I winced, expecting her frail body to bounce off the cast bronze walls. But she went straight through, like the double-wall encasements were made of paper.
 

Supports burst, iron twisted, the girl cut through everything in her path. I caught glimpses of her through the furnace's vents. Even the flames seemed not to touch her.
 

The tower groaned and tipped toward us. The boiler on top shuddered. Supports caved. The boiler rocked, then fell. An avalanche of water and twisted bronze and nickel tumbled down.

Vashion and Haller dove under a clanker. Gertrude and Othella dashed out of the Caldroen. The Warts found cover under an overhanging ledge. I heaved against the cage's bars. My hand slipped, slamming my elbow. I tried again. One of the bars creaked. My head burst with pain. A dragonfly hovered next to my ear; I heard each beat of its wings.
 

Bracing myself against the corner, I pushed the bent bar with my leg. It twisted. I pushed again. The bar groaned. I kicked again and again and again. It shattered. The dragonfly floated away. I wriggled through. With slippery fingers, I grasped Pearl's hand. She jerked awake, her eyes wild. I pulled her through the gap, then holding her to my side, I jumped. Catching the rail of the level above us, I swung us both under an overhanging ledge just as the water crashed down. It hit with a clap of thunder and a sea of brick and stone and chrome.
 

I rolled onto my back, and my chest heaved. But the headaches, the throbbing pain, the swimming mind—gone. I watched Mazol and others appear on different levels above us, leaning over the rails, gaping at the scene. Water rushed out of the broken wall into the courtyard, leaving behind a tangle of steel spider skeletons and iron snakes and oaken brambles. The cage was flat as stomped tin.

Lying at the peak of the bramble mountain: the girl
. Her dress, untorn. Her silver hair, combed and straight. Her skin, without blemish. A raven black chain around her wrist caught my eye.

I jumped down, landed knee deep in water, crawled up the pile of wreckage. Mazol ascended from the other side. We reached the top together. His eyes drifted to the dark chain. I thought he might reach for it when a shape appeared.
 

A man. He slumped beside the girl, wearing a long leather coat. The tip of an onyx blade stuck out his back, the handle protruded from his chest, blood dripping from its edge. He stooped over—half falling, half kneeling—and spoke into the girls ear.

"Terillium?" Mazol said.
 

The man peered up. His eyes scanned past me to Mazol, then back to me. He straightened his back. Staggered toward me, his hands out like he might embrace me. Or strangle me.