The Ruby Moon (17 page)

Avery heard a noise, and her eyes popped open. She bolted upright. “What are you doing in here?” she said to a girl who sat at the end of her bed.

“Kendrick and Kate asked me to wait for you to wake and then tell you they needed you in Tuck’s chamber.” The girl cast sad eyes on Avery, and she couldn’t bear to hear the girl say the dreaded words.

No! Why did they let me sleep?

The girl left, and Avery stumbled out of bed, dressed, and ran toward the infirmary. Her lungs felt like they might explode as she sprinted.

Please, God, I can’t lose anyone else!

She found Tuck’s privacy blanket swept aside and a group hovered around his bed. She pushed through them and nearly collapsed at the sight of him.

Tuck was sitting up and eating from a bowl of broth.

With a smile in his eyes, he said, “My fever has broken,” and he patted the chair beside him. “Sit before Kendrick gets back. He kicks everyone out when he visits.”

Avery collapsed into the chair, giddy with relief but concerned that Kendrick had risked returning to the infirmary. “He does, does he?”

“Yeah, he thinks I need to be resting all the time.”

“He’s right,” Avery said, noticing that everyone had suddenly left and the blanket had been pulled shut again. Tuck’s eyes looked so sunken and his face so thin, she would have to send for rich desserts and jugs of buttermilk. She would take it upon herself to make him well again.

“I need you to know something,” Tuck said, laboring to breathe.

“You shouldn’t be talking till you get your strength back. Let’s do this later.”

Tuck reached for her hand. “I’m all right. Listen, you would have made an excellent lady-in-waiting.” He paused and she hated knowing it was such an effort just for him to speak, yet he continued. “But I couldn’t put you in that kind of danger, and I’m sorry.”

Avery shook her head. They didn’t have to discuss this—of all things—and certainly not right now. She withdrew her hand and reached for the broth. “Let’s just focus on getting you better.”

“One more thing,” Tuck said, gently pushing the bowl away, and just the way he sounded made dread wash over her. “If I recover …”

“Please don’t say that. You’re already well on the way.”

“
If
I recover, I’m going to do whatever is necessary—even if it means risking my life—to get us out of this mess.” He waved weakly, as if to indicate everything associated with their captivity.

“But you do that every day, Tuck! You’re our leader. We need y—”

“No!” he said, shaking his head. “Being a leader requires doing more for the people I’m trying to lead. Leadership requires self-sacrifice. Hiding down here is no way to live.”

“It beats dying,” Avery said, forcing a chuckle.

“I agree, but we’ll all die if we stay here. That’s the joke on the criminals who think they’ve escaped here. They end up dying anyway because of the contaminated water or the lack of sunshine and all the disease. I won’t let it happen to us. I can’t let it happen to
you.”

Avery wanted so badly to tell him that she and Kendrick were on the verge of putting the final pieces together and that Kendrick could soon be king. But it was too early, and she had given her word.

Anyway, Tuck looked so energized by his own plans that maybe he needed them to help him get better. Hopefully, his recovery would allow him time to reconsider and see that he didn’t need to take any big risks just yet.

“Do we have to have such a serious conversation?” Avery asked.

“Yes, because you need to hear me.”

“But you won’t make any big decisions while you’re still sick, will you?”

“I already have, and I won’t be changing my mind.”

Guard your heart,
she told herself.

Tuck finally took a slurp of soup. He smiled. “It might be easier for you if you got mad at me, maybe even hated me a little.”

Avery faked a laugh. “I’ll do my best.”

Something in the way Tuck looked at her, or maybe it was his willingness to risk his life, made clear what she needed to do. Whether or not he intended to, Tuck had freed her to leave the castle once and for all and reunite with her family.

How long had it been since Edward had told her he would help her if she would meet him in the chapel on the other side of the Salt Sea in five days? Once Tuck had fallen ill, she had lost count as the days became one long, perpetual nightmare. Was it already too late?

“You should rest,” Avery said, standing and managing as brave a smile as she could. She helped Tuck set the bowl and spoon aside and settle back down.

When she left, she ran into Kendrick coming the other way.

“How’s our boy doing?” he asked.

“Better, I think, but I still say it’s dangerous for you to be in there.”

“He’s long past being contagious, and I’m fine.”

“It’s your decision,” she said with a shrug, but her mind was elsewhere. It was now or never. She could have only a couple of minutes while Kendrick checked on Tuck.

If she acted on this decision, there would be no coming back.

Avery cared nothing about seeing Edward again; she lived to get back to her family.

With no idea what Edward wanted in exchange for reuniting her with them, she feared she would have no choice but to accommodate him—within reason. She would not—could not—do anything immoral or illegal. She had been raised better than that. But otherwise, she couldn’t imagine anything she would not do.

And once she found her father, she would tell him about all the captive thirteen-year-olds, and he would know what to do.

Not knowing how long she might have before Kendrick returned, Avery slipped into the chamber where he kept his replica of the castle and all his meticulous notes and maps. She riffled through thick stacks of parchment searching, searching….

She knew Kendrick had spent entire nights poring over every passage in the castle’s underbelly, seeking potential routes to the country chapel in the event of an emergency. He had plotted every entrance and exit and had boasted recently that he had finally discovered the path.

Finally she came to one map that traced a circuitous route, and all she could do was stop and stare at it in the candlelight. This was the one that held all her hopes and dreams, the one she would put to the test. She carefully folded it and tucked it under her arm.
Thank you, Kendrick!

Ducking back into the main tunnel, she had no time to lose. For all she knew, she might have already missed Edward. She wouldn’t know until she got there.

Letting hot tears spill, Avery sprinted until her lungs burned. She flew past the kids’ chambers and the infirmary. She passed where she had met with Edward and where she had first discovered the crate with the pigeon.

Memories invaded her mind as she ran, and she hated that she might never see her friends again. She knew even as she slowed to check the map that she could be making the worst decision of her life, but
not
taking this chance could be fatal, too.

Whenever Avery began to doubt herself—which was only every few seconds—she reached into her pocket and curled her fingers around Henry’s paper boat. That and the ruby necklace beneath her collar were her links to home and constant reminders of her loved ones.

It was time to return to them.

When after at least an hour Avery came to a fork in the tunnel, she skidded to a stop and held Kendrick’s map up to the light from a torch on the wall.

The route on his map picked up beyond it, but the direction at the fork was unclear. She had no idea which way she should go.

“Left,” a voice whispered.

She spun, but no one was there.
Nerves,
she decided.

But what choice did she have? A disembodied voice, imagined or not, was as good as flipping a coin. Avery hiked up her dress and ran left, the trail of her gown flying behind her.

She ran until she came to sections of the underworld she hadn’t known existed. Parts of the tunnel were so narrow the sides brushed her shoulders. Elsewhere the space opened into lofty, vaulted ceilings that reminded her of the upstairs Great Room. Thick rock formations with pointed tips hung from the ceiling like dripping water frozen in time.

She passed disease-ridden people who looked as if they hadn’t eaten in weeks, and she saw others who looked like they could crush her with a stare. Who were these castaways with battered bodies and bold eyes, and what cruelties had they inflicted out in the world? What drove them here?

She ran from their cries and taunts with everything she had until she feared she could run no more.

Minutes morphed into hours. Hours felt like days.

Though Avery had to stop running and start walking to conserve her lungs and muscles, the going seemed no easier. The torches on the walls grew fewer and farther between until suddenly there were none and she had to feel her way along. And she quickly deduced why she had to labor so just to keep moving. She was ascending, now ever steeper, climbing, climbing! Was she finally rising from beneath the Salt Sea? Could it be she was nearing the end of this arduous journey?

Finally, at long last, when she had begun to believe darkness could grow no inkier in its blackness, a pinprick of light made her stop and squint then pick up her pace and stare. The light was coming through the edges around a door at the end of the tunnel! A beautiful door surrounded by bright light that portended a gateway to the outside, to freedom!

Soon the eerie, echoing, infernal dripping of the underground began to give way to a sound more pleasant—bells—glorious clanging that signaled some sort of good news. Breathlessly, she rushed for the melody that waxed louder and the light that grew brighter the closer she came.

When finally she came within reach of the door, Avery shoved it open with all her might.

Sunlight, glorious sunlight forced Avery’s eyes shut and sent her reeling backward. Shielding her face, she allowed herself to blink once, twice, and finally to let the tree line come into view.

A graceful sloping white spire, so delicate and ethereal she feared it might disappear if she looked away, rose above the tallest trees and came to a razor-sharp tip that pointed almost shyly to the heavens.

The country chapel! The stories were true!

Avery spread her arms wide, as if to embrace the entire landscape.

Despite her exhausting journey, had she not been here on the quest of a lifetime, Avery believed she could have run all the way back to the underbelly of the castle just to tell Kendrick that his map was right—the longest tunnel snaked its way under the Salt Sea all the way to the tiny, beautiful chapel in the village where country girls married.

But in her heart she believed she might never see Kendrick again.

And in the moment she had always anticipated would bring her relief, she felt only sadness at never seeing her friends again. She wished she had found the courage to say good-bye.