Madly (17 page)

Zain's blush turns into the bright red of shame. “My grandfather did a lot of things wrong, but he wasn't a thief. Your great-grandmother didn't want to use the synth version of the potion, so Zoro submitted it. And the horn turned gold. He used his winnings to set up ZoroAster Corp., and he felt threatened by your family, so he cut the Kemis out. That was wrong. But I'm saying this because I know there's no way my grandfather created that first potion on his own. They worked together—and I can prove it to you. He said your great-grandmother's diary had a lock embedded with an amber stone. It was very unusual and caught his eye. How would I know that if my granddad hadn't worked with her?”

“Her diary is lost! You could have made up anything.”

“I'm not making it up, Sam. Please, I need you to believe me. There's no way my father and I are going to produce the right potion. But I can help you get there.”

“So you can steal it from me? I think all this mountain air has gone to your head. I'd leave, but there's nowhere else for me to go.”

“No, but I have money, resources . . .”

“But your dad . . .”

“Screw my dad! This is bigger than petty rivalries. We don't have to be our parents, our grandparents. This is about saving Evie's life.”

“I have to get out of here,” I say. I don't know what I'm doing, but before I know it my boots are back on, I throw my jacket over my thermals and jump out of the tent. I walk a few steps away, knowing I'm trapped on the ledge but needing a breather.

“What are you doing? Are you crazy?” shouts Zain.

Outside, I take deep gulps of the freezing mountain air. I look up and stare at the sky. I've only had a few moments, when Zain appears beside me. “You're shivering,” he says. “Come back inside.”

But I'm not shivering, I'm stupefied. Out here, the night sky is as clear as I've ever seen it, and it's so full of stars—I never imagined the universe to be so crowded. And so colorful. There are pinks and greens mixed with the bright points of light. A shooting star wends its way across the sky, thrilling me. “I dreamed of seeing a sky like this,” I say. I think back to the stickers on my bedroom ceiling. “I never thought I would.”

“I think there's a lot you'll achieve, if you put your mind to it,” replies Zain.

I am cold now, and I let him lead me back inside the tent. My heart is screaming
lies, lies, lies
at Zain's
words. My head is asking, Why would he lie? Why does my grandfather hate synths, with a passion that borders on manic? Why does he hate the Wilde Hunts? He always says that the alchemists belong in the lab. But my great-grandmother conquered this mountain. She was an adventurer. I look at Zain and try to talk, but my voice only comes out as a whisper. “I still don't know why I should trust you.”

“Because I'm telling you the truth. This is the real me. I'll prove it to you.” He takes his wand out, turns it so that it faces him, and whispers a spell too quietly for me to hear.

“What are you doing?” I'm angry at him, so angry I want to storm off the mountainside, but I don't want him to hurt himself by casting a spell, especially after what happened with his father's ring. But what happens surprises me so much, I forget about my worries.

The glamours slowly slip from him, so skillfully applied I'd always thought he shunned that touch of vanity—apart from his tattoos. His jet-black hair—his signature—pales to a caramel brown, the light from the oil lamp giving it an almost golden sheen. The tattoos fade too, disappearing, and even his eyebrows shift slightly, losing their manicured edge and instead becoming something wilder, less tamed. He smiles at my wide-eyed stare, and I see that even his teeth have lost their perfect lines—one tooth now overlaps
another, ever so slightly. But his eyes don't change. They're the same dazzling blue they've always been.

What can I say? He's still beautiful.

His smiles wavers a touch, and I realize how nervous he is.

“I don't want to work against you, Sam.”

I don't let him say much more, because before I think myself out of it, I lean forward and kiss him. Then I pull away, and he smiles.

I can't look at him, but the sound of the wind outside is replaced by the beating of my heart, and the beating of his heart, which seems exponentially louder.

His fingers trace the contour of my neck, until they reach the base of my ear and embed themselves in my hair. He pulls me toward him and his kiss takes on a deeper urgency.

But then his nose brushes my cheek, and it's an icy shock. The temperature has dropped considerably. When we pull away from the kiss, I can see his breath, warming the air between us.

I can't help it; I have to laugh.

“What's so funny?”

“Oh, I don't know . . . My first time kissing Zain Aster”—he grimaces as I fake-swoon over his name—“and we're stranded halfway up a mountain with the threat of imminent death hanging over our heads. Not quite how I imagined it.”

“Hmm, I suppose I did think I would need to take you for dinner and a movie first.”

“Well, if we ever get down from here, then you owe me.”

He smiles, showing off his slightly crooked teeth. “Definitely.”

Chapter Thirty-Three

Samantha

WE SPEND THE REST OF the night shivering, huddled into each other, but only for warmth. Survival trumps romance. I know today is going to be another long day of hiking through the snow and my body is already protesting. By first light I want to get it over with. I can't stay cooped up in the tent any longer.

My stirring wakes Zain. He looks over at me, and my eyes widen. It's still strange seeing him without his glamours, and in the orange light of the tent it looks even stranger. He half-smiles and grabs his beanie, pulling it down over his hair self-consciously.

“Okay,” he says, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. “Let's pack up quickly and then I'll use one magic spell to try to find the way home. I think it's worth ruining a wand for that.”

I'm already stuffing my sleeping bag into its sack,
and then burying it deep in my backpack. We debate abandoning the tent; the loose guy rope ripped the outer sheet as it whipped around so ferociously in the wind. But there's the unspoken reality that we might need it again—another night on the mountain.

I lace up my boots and exit the tent. The view stops me in my tracks. All around me, as far as the eye can see, the sun is rising over the magnificent peaks of the mountain range, casting pink, orange and yellow light on the snow. And in the furthest distance, I can see the tallest mountain in the world: Mount Oberon, dominating the skyline even here, in a skyline of giants. It's rough, craggy, a jagged beauty.

Zain is packing up the tent behind me. “Sam, did you check through this cave yesterday?”

“Well, not exactly . . . ,” I say, not taking my eyes off the view. I want to drink it all in, as it might be the last chance I get.

“Maybe there's some abominable fur in there.”

I shiver, despite myself. “If you want to check, go ahead.”

He comes over and puts both hands on my shoulders. I look up at him. “I will be no more than five minutes, okay? A quick check, just so that this doesn't become a complete waste of search-and-rescue, and then we'll start heading for home. No more detours. Deal?”

“Deal.”

Even now, looking at the cave entrance, I have to turn my back on it. I remember the yawning noise I heard yesterday, and it unsettles me. What if it was more than just the wind?

I prepare both of our backpacks, so that we can put them on and move the second Zain's ready. I feel a little dizzy, light-headed. It's most likely my body reacting to the altitude. I open the flap at the base of my backpack and pull out the squished red bag of potion supplies from the bottom. I need to chew a couple of coca leaves, as Kirsty suggested.

I'm about to put the red bag back when a movement from the side of the ledge captures my attention. It's the snow. It's crumbling over the edge.

“Zain?” I say over my shoulder. My first thought is that the ledge is disintegrating. But then something happens to change my mind. The reality is even more terrifying. “Zain?!” I hiss louder.

“Sam? What is it?” I hear his footsteps echoing in the cave, pounding toward me.

But it's going to be too late.

Because now I can really see what's happening. An enormous hand—gnarled black fingers topped with long, razor-sharp nails—is creeping its way across the ledge. The fingers bury themselves into the snow, finding purchase.

Zain skids to a halt beside me. “What is it?”

I don't answer, because as soon as he finishes
speaking, he sees it too. He throws his arm in front of me, and we both take several steps backward. I don't know how he thinks that arm is going to help. If what's coming up in front of us is what I think it is, then we're dead already.

Zain takes out his wand from where he holsters it, just underneath his arm. I hope he's smart enough to remember he's probably only got one shot in that thing, and then it's spent. If he messes it up . . . did I mention already that it's all over?

Another arm appears, and it is so long it appears almost double-jointed, twisted at unnatural angles. The snow clings to its fur, coating it like a jacket.

Then the head appears. No—not the head, a hump, a great length of shoulder that towers up above the body. Its eyes, when they do appear, are dark, small and round like marbles. The abominable sees us, and for a moment it looks as if it's about to run away and leave us be.

Zain thinks the lump is the head. He thrusts his wand at the abominable, and before I can scream at him to stop, he's blasted. The creature cries out in pain, but it doesn't come out like a normal scream. It's a screech as loud as a banshee, and I throw my hands over my ears.

The normally solitary abominable is a creature that would run from mankind if it had the choice—but now Zain's just made it angry. He runs to the edge, but as we
feared—it's too far to jump without breaking our legs or our necks or both.

The abominable's already clambering onto our ledge. Its face is completely black and the hump smoulders where Zain hit it. It's twice the size of Zain. Zain tries—in vain—to use his wand again, but his wand smokes, combusting from the inside. There's no performing magic with that again.

I grab his hand. “Come on!” There's only one place that we can go. Back—back into the cave. Find somewhere to hide from it, wait until it gets bored, figure out some kind of plan.

We run into the cave. The abominable stops by our backpacks—maybe it thinks they are also a threat, just lying there like other humans—and takes them up in its great hands, ripping them apart and shredding them with its fingernails. It tears into our tent, sending strips of orange plastic into the air. It then dives in with its teeth, but that's when I know we've lost our small advantage. Nothing in those packs is going to taste nice. It tosses them off the side.

“This way.” Zain pulls my arm. He's chosen a path where the tunnel twists through a narrow channel. The abominable has spotted us, though. It comes toward us at a canter, and the entire cave shakes with its movement. Stalactites shake from their posts and fall on the monster, shattering off its back. No wonder Zain's spell had
no effect. Its hide must be extremely tough, if ancient stalactites that would easily have killed us can barely make an impact.

In the seconds it takes for the creature to reach the entrance of the narrow tunnel, we already know that it's a dead end. We slam up against sheer rock, and I spin around. If I'm going to meet my end, I'm going to do it bravely.

Zain scrambles against the wall, trying to find something, anything that might help us break through or fight back. But there's nothing.

The only blessing is that the abominable can't get through to us. It thrusts its arm down the narrow tunnel, the claws, those nails, coming so insanely close that I scream and scream and scream. Zain grabs me, pinning me to the rock as closely as possible, even as the abominable screeches its frustration. Eventually those claws retreat, and maybe it realizes we have no place to go, because it sits down right outside the entrance of our tunnel. I grab a pebble from the floor and mark a line in our little alcove. That's how far the abominable's claws will go. We don't pass that line. Zain looks at me and nods.

Then he holds his head in his hands. “Wh-what do we do?” he stutters. “Oh god, we're never getting out of here. We're going to die here.”

He's right. We could die here. It's scary seeing him
break down like this. I would be acting the same, if I didn't have a plan.

In his panic, Zain throws down his smoking wand, and it crosses our line. The abominable jams its arm back down the tunnel, trying to reach the evil piece of wood that hurt it earlier. But I need that wand. I jump down and grab at it too.

The abominable's nails rake my hand. I cry out in anguish. Zain pulls me back. “What are you doing?” he yells.

I clutch my hand to my chest. Blood gushes from the wounds, and I can't look at it or else I might pass out. Zain takes his scarf and wraps it tightly around my hand. The muscles in my arm are trembling. I keep it tight against my body.

“What did you do that for?” he hisses.

“I have a plan, but it needs your wand.”

“Well, you could have said something . . .”

“I didn't have time! If you could just keep your head!” Tears blind my eyes. My hand stings like crazy. I'm lucky that abominables don't have poisonous claws. At least, I think they don't.

“I'm sorry.” He hugs my shoulders, careful not to press on my hand. “Right, a plan? That's more than I've got. Can I help?”

“I think you're going to have to now. The only thing I was holding onto when the creature attacked is this.”
I point to the bag of ingredients that I dropped on the ground. “I think I have something in there that might help us.”

Zain picks up the red bag. He opens up the drawstring and peers inside. “Oh god, Sam, I could kiss you.”

“Let's not start that again. The plan hasn't worked yet. And honestly, I'm not sure that it will at this distance. At least . . . not with the abominable so awake. We might have to wait for a bit.”

Zain shrugs. “I don't think we're going anywhere.”

“True.”

“What do you need the wand for?”

“It's burning. Look at it.” The wand still glows red. Still smokes. I blow on it, and its embers glow. It's slightly magical fire, of course.

We settle down at the back of the cave, waiting for the abominable to show any signs of tiring. After an hour, the abominable has finally calmed down, and stopped clawing the edges of the tunnel. But its beady black eyes still stare at us with a glint of anger. It's in this for the long haul.

“Okay,” I say. “Shake out some of the petals from the bag, and put them around the wand.” It's the mountain sweet I collected earlier. A heavy sedative—which only affects abominables. Nature often keeps its remedies close by. I'm just lucky my instincts struck me on the journey up here.

The petals need to smoke, or else it won't work. But they won't stay on top of the wand.

“The drawstring,” I say. Zain nods, and unthreads the drawstring from the bag. Then he ties the petals to the wand. Immediately the smoke, which had been black, turns a light blue color. It's working. I stand behind the smoky concoction, which we place right by the line. Then I start waving it down the tunnel.

The abominable shuts one of its eyes. It might be because of my concoction, we just can't tell. “We're going to have to get closer to it.”

“But . . . is it working?”

“I don't know. If we're lucky, it's getting sleepy already. But we don't have much mountain sweet petal left.”

He takes my hand, my good hand. “I'm going ahead of you, okay? This is my wand. My choice.”

“It's my idea, though!”

“And you've already been hurt for it. But you promise me something. If anything happens, and I mean anything, you run for it. You run as fast as you can, and don't look back.”

“We're doing this together. I won't leave you.”

“Don't be stubborn!”

“I'm not being stubborn. I'm just saying. We're both going to get out of this, or neither of us are. This works, or it doesn't.”

He studies my eyes, but he's not going to see any hint of weakness.

Finally, he capitulates. He doesn't have much choice. “Ready?”

“Ready.”

We step over the line together. Then we both stop, our breath caught in our throats. I don't even think my heart is beating. The abominable doesn't move. Maybe some of the sedating smoke did reach it.

We take another step. Zain tries to pull ahead of me despite our agreement, but I catch up with him. We stand shoulder to shoulder, and take another step. Still no movement. Another step. Zain pushes in front as the tunnel narrows. Then there is movement. The abominable grunts, shifts its position. Zain holds the wand, with the petals still smoking at the end of it, the blue smoke drifting toward the creature. It tries to get up, but we keep moving forward. The smoke gets stronger. I can see the abominable groaning, struggling, its eyes rolling listlessly in its head. This is going to work.

The smoke embroils itself around the monster, drawn to it, attracted to it, settling on the creature's fur, on its eyes. It's managed to stand—it's strong, this one—but as it tries to step forward it slumps down, suddenly drowsy. We're almost in the cave proper. The abominable falls over, so that it's lying on the ground. It opens one eye at me with an effort.

Zain starts running toward the cave entrance,
toward the light, toward freedom and the exit.

For a second, I don't come with him. I stare at the abominable, and it stares back. Zain yells my name.

The smoke starts to disperse. But I can't have come all this way for nothing. I simply can't. I lunge for the abominable, but it has just enough strength to attempt to swat me away. I jump back.

“Run, Sam!” says Zain, and I turn reluctantly from the beast. Then I spot a clump of fur pinned to the ground by a fallen stalactite. I manage to grab a handful, wrenching it from beneath the rock.

Now I run.

I don't look over my shoulder. I can sense the abominable lumbering to its feet, stumbling into the cave wall and causing other spears of stone to fall from the ceiling. I dodge around the falling debris, sheer adrenaline keeping me going. I can see Zain is yelling at me from the cave entrance, silhouetted by the bright light of the outside, but all of a sudden I can't hear him. The beanie on his head is lifted up by a strong wind, and whips away. Then, from behind him rises an enormous helicopter, blades thumping in the cold mountain air.

Zain grabs the railing running down the side of the door and jumps up onto the first step, his other arm reaching back to me. I run to his open hand, and he pulls me up.

I'm inside the chopper, a seat belt being strapped
around me. Back on the ledge, the abominable is nowhere to be seen. It won't come near this terrifying flying beast. But as we pull away from the mountain, back toward safety, and home, I swear that I hear a mournful cry, almost human, from the depths of the cave.