that sounds strangely childlike.
“What do you want with me?” I ask, my voice carrying a small measure of boldness.
“I’m here to get you to Mavyn. We don’t have much time.”
“Where is Wade?” I demand.
“I don’t know,” he whispers. “He should have already brought you to back to us. Something is going on. You need to come with me now.”
“What about Yori?” I ask, looking back at the hallway he disappeared into.
“There’s no time, they could be here any second.”
I don’t know who they are, or if I even want to know, but I can’t bring myself to abandon Yori like this.
“You need to come with me Kaela. I’m not strong enough to force you, but you need to trust me. Your father did.”
Those last three words resonate through my entire body. Of anything this mysterious person could have said to persuade me to resist my fears and leave Yori behind, he said the right thing. I look back toward the still-empty corridor one more time, and then climb down the hollow after my new escort.
A ladder inside leads us all the way to the sounds of flowing water. The canals here below the city are wide and extensive, a lot like those back in Kalepo, which before wouldn’t have come across to me as strange, but now does. The mention of my father has once again reinforced in my mind the many possible connections between my homeland and the people here. Maybe they were designed and built—or I hesitate to imagine—even populated at the same time.
As we walk in the shadows and turn a corner, my guide comes into better view through the flicker of light from a grate above us. He is no guide at all, but a child almost half my size, which explains the youthful weakness of his voice and why he insisted he could not force me to follow him.
“I’m older than I look,” he says, somehow anticipating my astonishment.
I don’t say anything more as the child guides us down long tunnels and across narrow causeways leading through the complex network of waterways beneath the city. I find myself impressed by his apparent knowledge of such a confusing labyrinth. He moves with great confidence, something I need him to possess having lost Yori and Wade to the unknown.
After a while, the sound of running soldiers, their heavy shoes and rattling armor, echoes and stampedes above us. I stare up, feeling that they can sense our presence even all the way down here. They must be looking for us. Maybe the guard at the gate knew. Perhaps it was his intent to lead us into a trap.
We continue forward a great distance all the way across the city, or so it seems, stopping only to avoid drawing attention as more guards move around purposefully on the streets above us. We then take a hidden, secluded stairway that diverges away from the canals down even further. A few candles light the way through the black tunnel, the little warmth they provide a welcomed relief in the otherwise cold, watery air.
The tunnel bends slightly, and at its end is a simple wooden door. I stop, feeling overwhelmed with apprehension at what it hides, even if it hides only Mavyn. Wade says we can trust her, but he never explained why. I made that mistake with Anastasia, at least for a brief moment. Maybe this enchantress is no different. But there is only one way to find out.
“Come,” the child says.
I see his face for the first time, illuminated by the small flames. It does not match that of a child. It is rough and scarred, like Yori and Wade’s, as though he has seen many more years than his size suggests. His features are still childlike, but his dark-blue eyes look tired, like those of an old man. I wonder if he is not also a ranger, cursed with eternal youth.
“Just a little further, Kaela,” he says firmly, his young voice emanating the optimism he must want me to feel.
My face remains reactionless for a moment, until I take a deep breath and rub my eyelids against my eyes, so roughly that it hurts slightly.
“Okay,” I sigh.
He twists the handle and opens the door, which swings silently into the darkness as though weightless despite the creaking I would have otherwise expected. It is a door that gets used often. This is how far the rangers have had to go to keep safe from the soldiers who must always be looking for them.
The room is small and windowless, with candles along its edges and a table at its far end covered with scattered papers. Behind the table is a woman, cloaked in black, tall, her blonde hair hanging beyond the edges of the hood that covers most of her face and shadows the rest.
I step cautiously into the room, watching her lips, anticipating their movement and wondering what she will say as the orange flicker from the candles illuminates them, brings them to life.
“At last,” she says warmly, but with an aloofness that makes her seem somewhat untrusting.
She reminds me of when I met Anastasia, that sensation of otherworldliness that the queen of Sanctuary possessed. I don’t know how to put words to it, but Anastasia never felt like she was in the same room as me, like part of her was missing, was somewhere else. This enchantress carries the same aura.
“Are you Mavyn?” I say almost in a whisper, too anxious to hear even my own voice reverberating off of the stone walls.
She bows her head slowly.
“I have been waiting a long time for you, so long I feared you would never come.”
“Why fear my absence?” I gulp, the sudden stampeding of soldiers in the streets above reminding me of the distress surrounding my arrival, of what could happen to us if they find us plotting here in this secret chamber.
“Because without you, or rather, without what you carry, there is no hope for escape.”
“Escape from what?”
“This world.”
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