Her lungs burned.
What if there was no gateway here after all?
What if she had jumped in at the wrong spot?
Then, suddenly, she felt it: the river released her and her body moved freely, as if she were swimming through air. She could breathe as well. Here, the current seemed to be pulling her in one direction, so she didn’t fight it. Hopefully, she would find Kinesthesia. She must find it.
She focused on logic and process, the very things that Kinesthesia represented. It was a world at the very center of the universe, the heartbeat that kept everything else in rhythmic harmony.
The cool rush of the river became the soothing hum of thousands of different worlds vibrating all around her like small swirling galaxies, and within reach of so many different possibilities, she momentarily wondered if Luc was right.
Could there be choice in a universe so large?
But if everyone had choice, who would maintain the balance?
Corinthe swam through a comforting, familiar buzz, as though Luc had left a trail of warmth in his wake. She was beginning to feel more comfortable in the Crossroad, remembering that if you didn’t resist, you could more easily control your path. All she had to do was lean into it, stay calm, and let her instincts lead her. The water around her started to grow thicker, like molasses. But it was blacker and tasted faintly metallic. She held her breath as she found herself submerged in the thick liquid, pushing on her chest as though it were trying to suffocate her. Corinthe’s arms screamed in protest at the effort it took to move, and she fought for the surface. Each stroke was harder than the last. The water was no longer water.
It was thicker—and colder, too—and felt like lead all around her.
Corinthe managed to break the surface and inhaled deeply, knowing she’d made it out of the Crossroad. She struggled to the edge of the river, where a grid framework lined the shore. The liquid metal grabbed at her legs, clawed at her waist, dragged her backward. She just managed to hook an arm over a piece of the metal frame on the banks of the river.
She pulled.
And, suddenly, thankfully, the river released her and she was out.
Liquid metal soaked her clothes and hair, impossibly heavy. She wrung it out the best she could before she stared out over the landscape of grids and vast gears, motion and thunderous noise. She had made it to Kinesthesia.
The pain here was immense. A world of metal and fire—no nature, no growth, no life at all. Already she found it difficult to breathe. She knew she must find Luc quickly. She could not hope to last in this world very long.
Showers of brilliantly colored sparks erupted each time the enormous gears grated together, pumping out the logic of the universe, the order and the time. The world was laid out across a massive metal grid floor. Gears spun all around her, some as large as the Golden Gate Bridge, and they connected with others the size of her fist.
They moved together fluidly, shifting and changing, hooking up with new gears that rose from the ground. Some fast, some slow, but in perfect harmony. This was the heartbeat of the universe. But each pulse of the giant mechanism sent sharp pain through Corinthe’s body.
The world where logic was generated.
Between the gaps in the grid, Corinthe could see more machinery churning away, and multicolored wires braided together, running between them. But beyond that, she knew, was an infinite abyss—a swirling chaos at the core of this world.
But where was Luc?
The grid was crisscrossed with metal walkways, each about three feet wide. But they seemed much narrower with spitting metal below them. The heat was intense. Steam rose from her clothing, hissed up from grates in the ground.
A low vibration shook the entire structure and gave Corinthe the impression of being on a storm-tossed boat. She barely managed to keep from stumbling. Giant pistons pumped up and down, emitting bursts of steam. Her gaze moved along the arm that rose and fell, connecting a cog to an enormous gear.
Luc was standing underneath it.
Even from a distance, she could tell he was studying her locket, trying to figure out how it worked.
Before she could call out—or decide whether she should call out, whether that would make him run—he turned and disappeared behind a piston the size of a house. She began to run.
Behind the piston where she had seen Luc disappear was a suspension bridge made of steel mesh, which spanned a monstrous gap over a chasm of darkness, in which thousands of giant metal teeth were grinding and gnashing together.
On the other side of the chasm was a clock tower at least twenty stories high, whose peak was obscured by thick clouds of steam. Each time the second hand moved, a tremendous tick reverberated through the heavy air.
Luc had already crossed the bridge and had made it to the door of the tower.
She risked calling his name, but either he didn’t hear or he pretended not to. The suspension bridge lacked a railing, and it swayed as she shifted her weight onto it, raising her arms for balance.
Don’t look down.
She kept her gaze focused on the clock tower. As quickly as she could, one foot in front of the other, she began to walk. Each time the bridge shifted, her pulse leapt. She felt as though she were crossing a vast, dark mouth belching foul steam. She couldn’t help but imagine what it would be like to be pulverized by all those metal teeth.
Fear drove through her, made her insides tight. She wondered whether any of the humans she had helped ease out of the world had felt the way she did now.
The idea made her stomach swing. She hoped not.
It seemed to take hours to cross over to the clock tower, and by then, Luc was nowhere to be seen. When she felt solid steel under her feet once more, she wanted to cry in relief. Instead, she threw herself at the door of the clock tower, grateful that it gave way easily to the pressure of her touch, and pushed her way inside.
In the middle of the small, circular room, which was filled with more machinery, more pendulums and cogs, gears and pulleys, was Luc. The noise was slightly quieter in here.
“You,” he said, when he saw her. He had the decency to look guilty, at least.
“You didn’t think I’d catch up with you, did you?” Corinthe kept her voice neutral, ignoring the fact that Luc was pale, that he looked exhausted and afraid. She would not make the same mistake twice.
“Look, I’m sorry.” Luc raked a hand through his hair. “I need to save my sister. And I can’t risk—”
“What?” Corinthe’s voice faltered. She couldn’t ignore the way he was looking at her: the warmth, the pleading.
“You,” he said, after several seconds.
Corinthe stared at him, trying to decipher the meaning behind his words.
Luc moved, shifted closer to her. Corinthe reached for her knife that wasn’t there. Could she fight him off if he attacked her? She was stronger now, thanks to Miranda. She would put up a good fight. But she didn’t know whether she could kill him.
She didn’t want to kill him.
Miranda had said she had no choice.
Of course she had no choice.
Did she?
A smudge of grease streaked one of Luc’s cheeks. In that instant, Corinthe remembered a task she had once been charged with: a mechanic who was to be injured so he could no longer perform his job.
All it had taken was a jack, pushed just out of balance. Corinthe didn’t question why or what would happen to the man afterward, but she knew the accident had been necessary to set him onto his destined path.
The marbles—her tasks, after all—were about balance and order.