What if she only had hours?
“Show me the gateway,” she said. The gnome made a leap for her locket, but she scrambled backward and stood unsteadily. She pulled the chain off her neck and held it firmly, raising it high above his head. “Tell me and I’ll give you this.”
Beatis licked his lips nervously, his eyes darting back and forth between the locket in her hand and a low tree full of blue leaves to her right. Corinthe could tell at once this tree was not full of blood like the rest.
Her pulse sped up. The entrance to a gateway was there. Once she entered she’d have to navigate the Crossroad to Lucas.
Corinthe turned and ran.
“Mine!” Beatis shrieked. He produced the knife from a strap around his waist and made a leap for her. She felt a quick tug; a clump of hair came away in his hand.
The angry hum of the Nymphs swelled to a scream.
Corinthe snapped the locket closed as she hurtled toward the gateway, calling on every ounce of her strength as an Executor. She launched herself up into the tree. Waves of nausea rolled over her and she fought them back.
“Beatis will find you!” The gnome stabbed furiously at the tree as Corinthe climbed. “You be dead and I get the locket. Beatis take it from you when you be dead. Deal! It be a deal!”
She kept climbing, fighting through the fierce wind that had begun to blow. The swell of the Nymphs’ howling was drowned out. She could no longer hear Beatis’s threats. Her hair whipped around her head. Blue leaves swirled in and out of her vision. They looked like shattered pieces of the sky.
The wind grew stronger, like a hurricane rush. It was as if a tornado had descended on top of her, intent on ripping her apart one cell at a time. The gateway had opened, and the wind from the Crossroad rushed into the forest. The force yanked at her body, pulled her grip loose. For one second, she hung suspended in the gray nothingness.
Then she fell—up or down or sideways, she couldn’t tell.
She’d been told that like a river running through an endless prairie, the Crossroad forked through and across the whole universe, constantly changing direction. The motion created a furious wind, a current that blew its travelers between worlds.
Agony ripped through Corinthe’s chest, a hundred times worse than the hornet stings. She willed herself against the current, following Lucas’s trail, feeling his presence in the universe.
Focus.
She managed to open the locket, and the ballerina spun.
Think of finding the boy.
Think of killing him.
Then you can go home.
11
The hand came out of nowhere.
How he saw it, how he managed to grab hold of it, Luc didn’t know. But suddenly, the blackness fell away and he was pulled to the ocean’s surface, gasping for air.
Rough wood scraped his cheek, then his chest. The hand let go and Luc rolled onto his back, coughing. He was on some kind of raft. Overhead, the two suns still blazed hot in the sky. He blinked rapidly, the brightness stinging his eyes after the complete immersion in the dark water.
No, not water. It hadn’t filled his lungs or wet his clothing.
Even his hair was dry.
Luc sat up slowly, leaning against a large wooden contraption—it looked like some kind of old-school engine or steering device—fitted with various levers and gears, which were bolted to the middle of the raft. Or boat. Or whatever.
The man who had saved him grabbed one of the levers and pulled. After a few cranks, a motor coughed and groaned, and the floor under Luc’s feet began to vibrate. Oars on both sides of the raft began to circle, arching in high circles above the black ocean before submerging again without a sound. With each stroke, the boat moved forward a few feet in a path parallel to the shoreline. Overhead, a triangular patchwork sail snapped and billowed.
The man who had saved Luc now seemed content to ignore him. He had a scruffy jawline and hard cheekbones, and his hair stood out at all angles. He wore what looked like a pair of aviation goggles, but a piece was missing, so they only covered one eye. The uncovered eye was a cloudy white. He had on a dark jacket that hung to his knees, but he didn’t seem to even notice the stifling heat.
A huge black bird was perched on his shoulder, its glittering black eyes focused on Luc. The man tilted his head and whispered to it. The bird responded with several deep-throated caws.
“No worse for the wear, I see,” the man said. For a second, Luc thought that this comment was directed at the bird. His voice was thick with an accent Luc had never heard before. But then the man turned and limped heavily over to Luc. He was holding a tin cup; Luc prayed it was a glass of water. “We were watching you. Saw you fall.”
“Thank you,” Luc croaked. His throat was sandpaper raw.
When the man opened one side of his coat, Luc saw row after row of tiny vials stitched into pockets that had been sewn crudely to the inside. His half-gloved fingers moved deftly over the dusty-looking bottles, over and down, until he pulled one from its place. Quickly, he dumped the milky contents of the vial into the water.
Luc hesitated, despite an intense urge to drink. His hand went to the knife still tucked tightly in his belt.
“Boy, if I wanted to harm you, I’d have left you in the shadows. No concern of mine if you die. Go ahead. Drink, before the heat starts messing with your head. You’ve been in the suns too long.” The man thunked down the cup. Luc waited until the man had disappeared into a bright patchwork tent that dominated half of the deck before drinking greedily.
The liquid tasted cool and clean, and almost immediately, Luc felt his senses clearing.
Luc stood up carefully. He saw an endless black ocean before him, stretching to the horizon. Overhead the two suns hung high in the sky.
And suddenly, that thing that had been bugging him since arriving in this freakish place—the worry, the doubt—sharpened and crystallized.
Despite the dual suns overhead, nothing here had a shadow. Even Luc’s had somehow disappeared.
How was that even possible?
Luc moved his arm in a huge circle. Nada. A chill went through him, though the temperature had to be over 100 degrees.
What the hell? First there were two, and now there were none?
The raft swayed. He stumbled toward the tent. Maybe the drink the man had given him had some kind of weird side effect. But no. He had known before on the beach that something was very, very wrong. He had sensed it.
Luc lifted the tent flap and ducked inside, then froze, disbelieving.
He’d been expecting a plain setup, maybe a rough bunk or something. Instead, he felt as if he’d stumbled into a fortune-teller’s living room. The man was sitting in a huge ornately carved wooden armchair. Almost like a throne. There was a brightly colored Persian rug covering the coarse planks and a gleaming table laid with a silver tea set.
Hanging from the juncture where the tent’s poles connected, was a brilliantly lit chandelier. A hole just above it let in enough sun to reflect off hundreds of teardrop-shaped crystals, which threw tiny spots of light all over the room.
The entire space was no bigger than Luc’s bedroom but was filled so lavishly that it felt grand.
“What is this place?” Luc asked. “Who are you?”
The man stood and thumped over to a small wooden chest in the corner. He began filling a pipe. The bird squawked angrily at being displaced and flew over to a perch. “The name’s Rhys,” he said, without looking at Luc. “And that beautiful, indignant lady over there is my Mags. Now your turn.”