The grey sky groaned with something that sounded like thunder, but wasn’t. It hadn’t rained much since The Black. Storms were unnatural and filled with hateful energies, sometimes even the screams of the dead. Growing up, Cross had wondered why more people weren’t completely mad.
Maybe they are. Maybe we’re all insane.
“ 'But I don’t want to go among mad people,' Alice remarked.
'Oh, you can’t help that,' said the Cat. 'We’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.'
'How do you know I’m mad?' said Alice.
'You must be,’ said the Cat. 'or you wouldn’t have come here.'”
“ Can you get me a copy of Through the Looking Glass?” he asked Snow.
“ Wow. Random,” Snow smiled. “You want ‘Alice’, too?”
“ Sure.”
“ I will. But you can only have it if you come to dinner tomorrow.”
“ Are you going to make me meet your boyfriend?” he asked with a mawkish groan. “Groff?”
“ Geoff,” Snow said curtly. “And the answer is ‘yes’. Probably.”
“ Can I think about it?”
“ No.”
“ All right, then. Just bring the books, and nobody has to get hurt.”
They walked in silence for a time.
“ We’re in the looking glass,” Snow said softly. “I feel like that most days. Like we’re on the wrong side of some broken mirror.”
“ Yeah,” Cross said. He didn’t know what else to say.
The siblings drew close to the city. Flame cannons sputtered hot white flames and emitted the smell of burning fuel as they swiveled on rusted iron mounts at the southeast barbican. Electric currents ran up and down the black iron poles that stood on either side of the steep dirt path that led from the grave fields up to the rear city gates. They passed hexed concertina wire hung with what looked like voodoo implements that rattled in the chill breeze. Masked sentries bound in heavy armored coats regarded them from behind sandbags set atop the barbican. The guards all held assault rifles and sabers and wore black grenades on bandoliers.
Cross carefully positioned himself to Snow’s left as they advanced the last few meters of the trail, which leveled out with the ground at Thornn’s base just before reaching the city gates. There was no way to avoid seeing the frozen salt fields and the Bonespire on the far side, but Cross always did his best to shield Snow from the site, out of habit if for no other reason.
Estuaries of salt and brine lay to the west of Thornn’s cone-shaped outer walls. It was a massive expanse of broken white and grey earth torn up by mortar blasts, trenches, dried-up riverbeds and the grind of now abandoned vehicles that still sat there, unused. Soldiers milled about in small groups, and they kept low in spite of the absence of any visible enemy, their feet stuck in the white mud and cold water. The fields were miles wide and mostly flat, broken up only by the dead vehicles and occasional bunkers, some bivouacs and half-shattered stone and iron walls. The air smelled of saline, rust and dead fish.
Far in the distance was the nearest of the Ebon Cities’ Bonespires, a structure they’d simply dubbed The Black Spike. It was a dark ebon needle enshrouded in shadow, as if a black storm raged there day and night. The Spike darkened the sky. It was a tower made of black steel and blacker stone, a barbed protrusion that jutted from the earth like an obscene razor blade. Jagged crenellations and nail-like barbs covered the tower like a porcupine’s quills, and at its base moved organic vehicles covered in greasy shadows and clouds of black steam. Occasional bursts of lightning from within the dismal clouds cast the Spike in eerie silhouette.
Cross stared at the structure, and wondered how many Ebon Cities vampires were stationed inside. It had been some time since battle had occurred between Thornn and the Bonespire, but everyone remained vigilant. The war raged on elsewhere, but the battle for Thornn, at least for the moment, had drawn to a stalemate.
Because you bastards are busy waiting for Red and the Old One to finish their deal, he thought with equal parts bitterness and fear. Why waste your resources fighting when the key to killing all of us is about to be delivered right into your hands?
“ Please tell me you won’t be going back there,” Snow said. Cross hadn’t realized they’d stopped walking.
“ I’m not,” he said. “No, I’m not going back there.”
“ Are you going to be sent to look for Red?”
“ You know I can’t talk about that,” he said, but he said it more for the benefit of the sentries posted there at the gate. He’d tell her later, or maybe when they met for dinner.
He looked at Snow for a moment, and found himself at a loss for words. There she was, nearly a woman grown, and for some reason it struck him as so odd, so strange that she should be standing there, this old now, this mature, when he still saw in his mind the lanky and long-haired little girl who would only refer to him as “My Eric”, who’d walk around the house in his shirt that fit her like a sack, who as a toddler told their mother “I don’t think so” and nothing else for almost a month, who he’d grown up being taught he had to protect, and seeing her there now, so tall, so beautiful, filled him with worry and nearly brought tears to his eyes. His spirit felt it, too, and she held him tight, drew him close and slid across his skin like a warm shroud.
“ Eric?” she said. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“ Yeah,” he smiled. He wouldn’t tell her about the ache he got in his chest when he thought about how young they’d been, or the fact that he would go on whatever mission they sent him on in spite of how afraid he was, because he was always driven by the notion that he had to keep her safe. “Let’s get you indoors,” he said. “It’s getting cold.”
THREE
Graves was Cross’ only real friend aside from Snow. They’d known each other for as long as either of them could remember. Samuel Graves was an experienced soldier and a Hunter for the Southern Claw. He was also an admitted social deviant who insisted on trying to get Cross into as much trouble as humanly possible.
Before Cross could meet Graves, he had a number of errands to run. He wasn’t looking forward to any of them.
First, he walked Snow home, where she would doubtlessly await the arrival of Geoff. As much as Cross hated thinking about his sister being involved in a relationship, he liked the idea of someone watching out for her when he wasn’t around…which, as Snow had accurately pointed out, was most of the time. That Geoff was looking out for Snow was really the only reason he and Graves had let the faceless boyfriend keep breathing, or so Graves liked to claim.
Lengths of transparent cable filled with viscous colors stretched out over the streets. The web of cables was bound in a thick mesh that made Thornn appear stitched. The cables conveyed messages, hex currents and fluids that raced back and forth across the city.
Red dust and gravel filled the air with a gritty haze. Thornn’s buildings were round and sinuous, made from sandstone and brick and occasionally reinforced with cold steel plates and black iron meant to ward off incorporeal threats. The city structures were tall and clustered tightly together, lending Thornn’s narrow streets the semblance of valleys running through urban canyons. There were parts of Thornn rarely touched by sunlight, but steam vents and green-fire street lamps prevented the accumulation of ice on the roads. Narrow windows reinforced by iron panels spilled a multitude of fluorescent lights onto the streets located deep in the city’s heart, where some blocks had been left intentionally flat so as to house fountains, statues, or replicas of the obelisk monument on Ghostborne Island. Children played beneath the protective canopy of spirit shields and armed nannies, and this deep in the heart of Thornn’s Centertown district Cross was always struck by the smell of bakeries and bars, a strangely delectable blend of cardamom, hazelnut, sweet liqueur and cigarillos.