Then he turns and walks away.
CHAPTER 29
VANE
I want to race back to Audra, wrap my arms around her, and screw this whole slow-and-steady plan I came up with.
But the sadness I saw in her eyes keeps me moving away.
It reminds me too much of the first time we got together, and I know what it means. She needs to heal again before she’ll be ready for anything more—and not just emotionally this time.
I’m sure that bloodstained jacket is hiding something way worse than she’s letting on. Especially when I look at Gus.
I watch him and Solana scale the mechanisms of the turbine, and all I can think is . . . How is he still alive?
I’m glad he is—but his injuries?
There. Are. No. Words.
He catches me staring and gives me an exaggerated wink, like that will somehow make me forget his swollen face and shredded chest.
Audra comes up beside me—close enough that I can feel her heat through the air. I take a breath and remind myself: slow and steady.
“How bad is he?” I ask. “Tell me the truth.”
I wasn’t sure if she would, but she gives me the full horror story. By the end I have to bend over to get some blood to my head so I don’t pass out.
“Are you okay?” she asks.
Once again, I can’t believe that I’m the one being comforted.
I suck in a huge gulp of air, trying to drag myself together. “I’m just worried about you. Having to see all of that . . .”
“It was nothing compared to what Gus had to face.”
Maybe—and thank God, even if I know it’s crazy selfish to think that.
But still.
“You don’t have to downplay what you’ve gone through, Audra. It had to be awful.”
She swallows hard and looks away. “It was.”
They’re two teeny words—but they crush every part of me.
I reach up to wipe away her fresh tears. “I wish I knew how to help.”
“You are helping. You’re here.”
“I am—not that you really needed me. I should’ve known you’d find a way to escape.”
“It wasn’t me,” she says. “It was Gus. I don’t know how I would’ve gotten through this without him.”
I . . . don’t know what to say.
I’m glad Gus was there for her—well, not glad, given that Gus is basically a walking wound right now because of it.
But I’m glad she wasn’t alone.
It’s just . . .
“I wish I could’ve been there.”
If this were a movie, that would be her cue to give some big sappy speech about how I was there—always on her mind—and how the very thought of seeing me was what kept her going.
But this is Audra, so she tells me, “I’m glad you weren’t.”
She does take my hand, though, and sparks tingle everywhere our skin touches.
Even without our bond.
Even in this horrible place.
Even with all the complications piling up between us.
She’s everything.
My less noble side starts screaming, SCREW THE SLOW-AND-STEADY PLAN!
Even my noble side tries to convince me that bonding again might help her heal.
I lean a little closer—and I swear she leans closer to me. Her eyes are even focused on my mouth, making it pretty dang tempting.
But a thundering CRUNCH sends us both jumping back.
I turn toward the turbine, where Gus has peeled back a huge piece of metal, revealing a cluster of smaller gears spinning way faster than the others.
“If they didn’t know we were here before, they do now,” Audra warns us.
“Who cares?” Solana asks. “We’re shutting them down. Look!”
She pries one of the gears off with her windslicer—then another and another—each gear causing a chain reaction through the turbine.
Sprockets screech. Cogs clank. Springs snap. And everything sloooooooooooooooooows, until the hum of the fans fades away, and the floor stops vibrating.
The final nails in the turbine’s coffin are the vents lining the walls around us, which clamp shut one by one.
I should be celebrating the victory, but my chest feels too heavy. I can’t speak—can’t breathe—and from the way everyone else is clutching their throat, I’m guessing they’re having the same problem.
My vision dims and I grab on to Audra, using the last of my strength to drag her toward anything that could be an exit.
We only make it a few steps before the world fades to black.
CHAPTER 30
AUDRA
I wake up in chains.
Cold, heavy metal pulling against my wrists, ankles, and waist.
Jagged stone at my back.
Blackness all around.
The pit is so deep, it’s only a shadow stretching into oblivion. I thought nothing could be worse than my damp cell in Raiden’s dungeon. But this is beyond reason.
I try to piece together how I ended up here—something to do with a tower.
And a turbine.
And . . .
“Vane?” I whisper, hoping he won’t reply.
Please don’t let him be here—don’t let Raiden have that much control.
“Audra?” Vane asks groggily, shattering the last of my hope.
I try to turn toward the sound, but there’s a chain weighing down my forehead, restricting even the smallest motion.
“Are we all here?” Solana asks from somewhere farther away.
“I think so.”
Gus’s voice carries a heaviness that wasn’t there earlier. I don’t know if that means he was injured during our capture, or if his previous wounds are flaring up. The air here certainly can’t be helping. It’s disgustingly stagnant.
We must be deep under the earth.
“Welcome to my oubliette,” Raiden calls from somewhere high above us. “Clearly I should’ve kept you here all along, but I believed in the competency of my guards. That problem has now been corrected.”
Metal rattles, and a chained body is lowered in front of us—all I can see through the dim light is black skin and thin white scars.
I gasp.
“Yes,” Raiden says. “No doubt you recognize the fool who let you get away. Rest assured, that mistake will not be occurring again.”
The scarred Stormer thrashes, his words reduced to grunts and groans.
“Let me show you why you should be grateful for those chains holding you to the stones,” Raiden says.
The scarred Stormer’s eyes lock with mine as his bonds unravel, sending him plummeting into the darkness.
His groans fade as he falls—but the crash I’m expecting doesn’t come.
Instead, Raiden snarls some sort of command, and the groans choke off with a crunch.
“His years of loyal service bought him a much quicker death than any of you will experience should you try to escape,” Raiden tells us, and I wonder if that means he triggered the Stormer’s suicide draft. “Do not fool yourself into believing that your pitiful gifts will aid you. There’s no wind here. No power for you to draw on. Even I couldn’t stop myself from plummeting, and if you fall . . .”
A stretch of silence follows, until it’s broken by the sickening thud of a body spattering against the floor.
The sound of gore doesn’t bother me as much as the fact that I never learned the scarred Stormer’s name.
He was misguided—even cruel at times.
But he had his complicated reasons.
He also came to my aid once.
And now he’s dead, because Gus and I tried to escape.
“Please,” Vane says, his voice more angry than desperate. “I’m the one you want. Let the others go.”
Raiden’s laughter is darker than his pit. “You’re the least interesting at this point. But I’ll deal with that when I’ve finished cleaning up your mess. So I’d advise you to let the reality of your situation s
ettle in. Your deaths are inevitable, but you still have the chance to spare yourselves countless hours of agony.”
Metal clangs as my chains tangle so tight, it feels like my neck might snap.
“Fight against your bonds, and my guards have orders to drop you. And those who might consider themselves valuable should know that they’ll cost the lives of others.”
Seconds blur into minutes, then Vane whispers, “Is he gone?”
His chains clatter, and he coughs and hacks as though the guards tightened his bonds to punish him.
So we can’t talk—can’t move. And Raiden’s not lying about the air. There’s nothing here to aid us. My Westerly shield remains, but the turbine must’ve swallowed our other winds. And no drafts are brave enough to sink this deep into the earth.
That would explain why the Stormers didn’t follow us after we entered the wind tunnel. They knew we’d either lose consciousness from the flurries, or trap ourselves another way.
My shield’s song begs me to remember that the harshest storms eventually pass. But I find no comfort in the words.
How can any of us stand against such reckless cruelty?
Tears stream down my cheeks, and I surrender to the self-pity. After all the fighting and struggle and sacrifice—to end up here.
It’s such a disgusting waste.
I lose track of time. I lose feeling in my body. I’ve let myself slip so far away, I barely hear Solana whisper, “I’m getting us out of here.”
The guards rattle her chains to punish her, but it doesn’t stop the unsettling stirring.
The oubliette hums with a crackly sort of energy that rises from the darkness, filling the stagnant air with a willful purpose.
The swells grow stronger. Sharper. Tearing at my chains and clawing at my limbs.
All my instincts scream for me to resist the unnatural pull. But my Westerly’s song has changed. It sings of necessary sacrifice, and begs me to trust the danger.
So I release my hold as the air tangles into a cyclone of wicked wind. My chains bruise and batter until they eventually tear free—but instead of a deathly fall, I rise with the ruined drafts.
I crash into something nearby, not realizing it’s a person until their arms tangle around me, and I hold tight as we launch up with the strength of a hundred winds.
Jagged rays of light split the darkness, and we explode through shards of stone and bits of cold.
Whiteness swallows everything as I crash back to my feet, fighting to keep my balance in the mound of ice.
The storm fades and the cold takes over and I recognize the courtyard—and the hum of Raiden’s Shredder.
“This way,” I shout, struggling toward the sound.
The arms around my waist move with me, but someone else grabs my wrist and tries to drag me the opposite way.
“The tunnel we need is back through the fortress,” a deep voice says, and my brain takes a second to recognize that it’s Vane.
Gus replies before I do, and I realize he’s the one I’m holding on to.
“If we go back into that fortress, we’ll never get out,” he says. “There’s a way through the Shredder. Audra has the guide.”
“Aston left instructions for how he escaped,” I say, clinging to Gus for warmth to keep my head clear. “It’s our best chance.”
“I think they’re right,” Solana says, wobbling through the snowdrifts.
Her eyes look glazed, her limbs unsteady.
Whatever she did to launch us out of the oubliette was not without a price.
“Aston told us the same thing,” she tells Vane as he drops my hand to steady Solana.
“He also said it’s super risky,” Vane reminds her.
“No riskier than where we just were,” I say.
Vane turns to look at me, and I can’t read his expression.
“Okay,” he decides. “Take us to the Shredder.”
CHAPTER 31
VANE
Never mind—I vote for a new plan,” I say as I stare at the spinning blades.
I know it’s a dumb thing to say, but . . .
I don’t see how we’re supposed to survive this.
Seventeen fans, spinning so fast they look like a solid wall of metal.
“What about the trick you just used?” I ask Solana.
I’m guessing she blasted us out of the oubliette with the power of pain—and staring down this many fans, I’m okay with that. Especially since she didn’t seem to be as affected by the power. She’s weak and wobbly, but her eyes don’t have that creepy glint.
Solana shakes her head. “I used up everything to get us out of there. And I can’t sense the command I felt when you and I faced that other fan. I’m either too empty, or these blades are too strong.”
“We’re losing time,” Gus says, pointing to the grate behind us.
Through the gaps in the metal slats I can see a group of Stormers searching the courtyard. Soon enough, one of them is going to notice that the hinges to the grate are stripped from Gus prying it open.
“They can’t turn this thing on, can they?” I ask.
“It’s already on,” Audra says. “All Raiden does is narrow the beam of wind and aim it at his targets.”
She shudders at the memory, and Gus turns a greenish color.
I feel a different kind of green when she takes his hand.
It only lasts a second. Then she’s bending to pull up her pant leg and promising, “Aston’s guide will get us through.”
Gus crouches beside her, and as his hand brushes the red scratches on her calf, I gotta admit, I kinda want to deck him—even after I realize the scratches are the guide.
I know it’s the stupidest thing I could possibly be thinking about right now, but Gus and Audra seem . . . different.
The way they clung to each other as Solana blasted us out of the oubliette.
The way he keeps leaning on her.
And let’s not forget that GUS CAN ABSORB WESTERLIES!
I can’t tell if he’s had the full breakthrough, or just picked up a new talent. Either way, there’s a story there—and I’m starting to think I’m not going to like it.
I get that they’ve been through a ton of crap together, and that it had to bring them closer. But how close—and how will I survive it if they’ve gotten too close?
I shake the doubt away, realizing I have bigger things to survive first.
“So what do these marks mean?” I ask, squatting beside them—but giving Audra as much space as I can.
Audra points to the deepest scratches. “I’m assuming these marks are the path we’ll need to take. They seem to indicate the specific point we should aim for.”
I guess that sorta makes sense, and it fits with how Aston created the guide, but when I check the first mark—around the two o’clock position—“Uh, I still don’t see how we don’t die.”
“Aston warned us it would be like that, remember?” Solana jumps in. “He told us to trust the guide, not our eyes.”
“Right, but . . .” I grab Socky the Duck out of my pocket and fling him through the marked place on the blades.
We all get blasted with facefuls of shredded lint.
“I’ll go first,” Gus says, wiping the Socky carnage out of his eyes.
“You’re too weak,” Audra argues.
I have to agree with her on that one. Gus looks worse than when I first saw him. His skin is as gray as his Stormer jacket, and all of his bandages—side note: Are those made from Audra’s dress?—seem to be leaking red.
“That’s why I’m going first,” Gus says. “I’m the expendable one—”
Audra reaches for his hands. “No, you’re not.”
The look that passes between them definitely doesn’t help my downward-spiraling rage-jealousy.
Even Solana seems to notice, because she places a hand on my shoulder—and not in a possessive way. More like a “there, there” head pat.
Great.
“I’ll go first,” Audra
says.
“Uh-uh,” I jump in.
“Yeah, you’re the one with the guide,” Solana reminds her. “If something happens to you, we won’t know the path to follow.”
Okay, that’s definitely not the reason I was going with—though I hate to admit that it’s actually a valid point.
“If anyone’s expendable here, it’s me,” I tell them. “Raiden said as much back in the oubliette. Plus, I’m the one with the least injuries, so I should be the first up.”
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t hoping they’d talk me out of it—or at least try. But of course this has to be the one time they decide to agree with me.
I turn to Audra as I move into fan-jumping position, ready to tell her I love her in case I turn into Vane-splatter. But the words vanish when I realize there’s a chance she might not say it back.
“Okay,” I say, pretending my eyes are watering because of the fan. “Here goes nothing.”
“Be careful,” she begs, and that gives me a little boost as I raise my hands above my head like I’m about to dive into a pool, and launch myself into the fan.
The air vibrates all around me, and my ears throb from the hum, but there’s no pain—until I face-plant onto the cold metal floor.
“I’M ALIVE!” I shout, checking all the key body parts to make sure everything’s where it should be. “And there’s not a lot of space over here, so be careful with your landing.”
I’m still scrambling to my feet when Audra leaps through, tucking her legs as she lands. I’m so happy she’s okay that I can’t help it—I throw my arms around her.
She hugs me back, and I think maybe—maybe—she and I are going to be okay. Assuming we survive the next sixteen fans.
I let go of her as Solana lands beside us, and a few seconds later Gus follows, hitting the ground even harder than I did.
“It’s the Shredder,” Audra explains as Gus struggles back to his feet. “Some of its winds are still in his essence.”
Gus coughs up blood, and I want to punch myself for my earlier jealousy.
“We need to move faster,” I say, checking the guide, which shows the eight o’clock position on the next fan.
Audra insists on going first, and we fall into a pattern for the next seven jumps. You’d think it would get easier—but every leap is just as terrifying. All it takes is one mistake and we’re splattery pulp.