Now she knew better.
“I told you I’d kill you if you did that. I promised.”
“I am so sorry,” Myrnin said, and lowered his head.
“Lie still. It won’t be so bad if you keep yourself flat.” He sounded tired and defeated. Claire blinked back gray fog, fighting her way back into the world, and almost wished she hadn’t when he shifted a little, and she saw—really saw—what had happened to him.
There was a silver bar through his left arm, driven in between the two bones. On either side of it hung silver chains that rattled on the stone and were fixed to a silver-plated bolt. The wound continued to drip red down his arm and hand, to patter into a large puddle around him.
Claire had a flash of Amelie at Sam’s grave, silver driven into the wounds to keep them from closing. But Amelie had chosen to do that. This had been done to keep Myrnin here, pinned and helpless.
He shuddered, and the chains rattled. Even as old as he was, the silver must have been horribly painful to him; she could see tendrils of smoke coming from his arm, and he was careful to keep his hand away from the chains. His skin was covered with thick red burns.
“I’m sorry,” he said again. “I tried to warn you, but I couldn’t—I needed—”
“I know,” Claire said. “It’s—” What was it? Not okay, okay would be a real stretch. Understandable, maybe. “It’s not so bad.” It was, though. Still, Myrnin looked a little relieved. “Who did this to you?”
The relief faded from his face, replaced with a blank, black rage. “Who do you think?” he asked.
And from all around them, from the faint shimmer of crystal embedded in the walls, came a soft, smoky laugh.
“She touched me,” Claire said, remembering. “She dragged me here. I didn’t think she could do that.”
“No,” Myrnin agreed. “I didn’t think she could do a great many things, although she was capable of them on a purely theoretical level. I’ve been a fool, Claire. You tried to warn me—even Amelie warned me, but I thought—I thought I understood what I’d created. I thought she was my servant.”
“And now,” Ada said, gliding out of the wall in cold silver and black, “you belong to me. But am I not a generous master? You starved me for so long, barely giving me enough blood to survive. Now I give you a feast.” Her cutout image turned toward Claire, and she folded her hands together at her waist, prim and perfect. “Oh, Myrnin. You didn’t finish your dinner. Don’t let it go bad.”
Myrnin stripped his black velvet coat off his right arm, then shrugged it down his left until it was covering the chain. He took hold of it, right-handed, and pulled. Claire tried to get up to help, but her head went weird again, and she had to rest. She rolled on her side and watched Myrnin’s right arm tremble as he tried to exert enough pressure to snap the chain, and then he sat back against the wall, panting.
He stared at Ada as if he wanted to rip her into confetti.
“Don’t pout,” she said. “If you’re good, I’ll let you off the chain from time to time. In a few years, perhaps”
Claire blinked slowly. “She’s sick,” she said. “Isn’t she?”
“She’s insane,” Myrnin said. “Ada, my darling, this would be amusing if you weren’t trying to kill us. You do realize that if I die, you waste away down here. No more blood. No more treats. No more anything.”
In answer, Ada’s image reached out and grabbed Claire by the hair, dragging her up to a sitting position. “Oh, I think I can hunt up my own blood,” Ada said. “After all, I control the portals. I can reach out and snatch up anyone I wish. But you’re right. It would be terribly boring, all alone in the dark. I’ll have to keep you all to myself, the way you kept me all to yourself, all these years.” She dropped Claire and wiped her hand on her computer-generated gown. “But I can’t share you with her, my love.”
Myrnin’s eyes flared red, then smoothed back to black, full of secrets. “No indeed,” he said. “Why, she’s in the way. I see that now. Send her out of here, lock her out of the portals. I never want to see her again.”
“Easily done,” Ada said, and grabbed Claire’s hair again. She dragged her backward, and Claire flailed weakly, grabbing at loose stones and breaking nails on sharp edges of rock.
She looked over her shoulder in the direction they were going.
Ada was dragging her to the edge of the sinkhole.
“No!” Myrnin said, and got to his feet. He lunged to the end of his chain, reaching out; his clawing fingers fell short of Claire’s foot by about two inches. “No, Ada, don’t! I need her!”
“That’s too bad,” Ada said. “Because I don’t.”
Claire’s hand fell on a sharp, ancient bone—a rib?—and she stabbed blindly behind her head. A second later it occurred to her that she was trying to stab an image, a hologram, an empty space—but Ada let out a yell and the pressure on Claire’s hair eased.
Ada’s pressed both hands over her midsection, which slowly spread into a black stain.
She was bleeding.
Where the blood hit the stone, it vanished in a curl of smoke.
But the wound didn’t heal.
“Yes!” Myrnin cried out. “Yes, by manifesting enough to touch you, she makes herself vulnerable—Claire! Here! Come here!” Myrnin cried, and Claire crawled back in his direction. The second she was within reach, he dragged her toward him, putting her against the wall.
Ada was still standing where she’d been, looking down at her and the spreading dark stain on her dress. Her image guttered, flared, sparked, and then stabilized again.
She flashed toward them, screaming that awful, echoing shriek from all the walls. Myrnin pivoted gracefully and hooked the slack of his chain around her silver, two-dimensional throat. Where it touched her, it burned black holes, and her scream grew louder, until it was cracking stone in the walls. She tried to pull free, but the silver wouldn’t let her go. “I’ve got her!” he said, although Claire could see that his whole body was trembling from the strain, and the burn of silver on his hands must have been horrible. “Go, Claire! Get out of here! You have to go!”
She was too weak, too dizzy. The room was a minefield of sinkholes and false floors, and even if she’d known where to step, chances were she’d simply collapse halfway across and disappear into one of those deep, dark chasms . . . .
And she couldn’t just leave him.
“Claire!” His voice was desperate. “You have to go. Go now.”
Now that the lights were on, she could see a clear trail that looked solid, leading all around the room’s edge. Claire stumbled out onto it, guiding herself with both hands on the stone wall, and took one torturous step after another. The lights flickered, and the screaming suddenly cut off behind her.
Claire didn’t dare look back. She was at the door, a black unknown facing her.
Portal.
She couldn’t think. Couldn’t get her head together. Couldn’t remember all the frequencies to align to take her where she needed to go.
Behind her, she heard Ada laugh.
You have to do this. You can do this!
Claire’s eyes snapped open, and without thinking about it, without even meaning to do it, she threw herself forward into the darkness.
And fell out on the other side, into the tunnel beneath Myrnin’s lab. Overhead, the trapdoor was open, letting in streams of pale lamplight. Claire staggered into a wall, bounced, and ran away from the light, into the damp chill of the tunnel.
Twelve long steps, and she heard the cavern echoing overhead. She slapped the wall until she found the lights, flipped them on, and ran toward the keyboard at the center of Ada’s hissing, steaming, clanking metal form.
A cable slithered across the stone, trying to trip her, but she stumbled on, caught herself against the giant keyboard, and took a second to gasp for breath. Her body was shaking all over, cold as a vampire’s, and she just wanted to fall down, fall and sleep in the dark.