“Don’t feel sorry for yourself, Vega,” I said out loud, causing Harry Two to peak his ears. “Fancy meals and fancier titles do not really matter.”
But for the first time, for the very first time, I was seriously contemplating leaving this place. No, escaping this place. It had been my home. Now I didn’t know what it was. Or what was keeping me here.
Later, unable to sleep, I rose and put on my cloak. Harry Two rose obediently and stood beside me.
I did have something left in Wormwood, something of great importance to me.
I was going to see my parents.
UNDEVIGINTI: Truly Alone
I STARED UP AT the hulking doors to the Care. It was long after visiting time, but I didn’t want to be alone. I wanted to be with the family I had left.
I had already looked around for Non but hadn’t seen him anywhere. The git was probably off patrolling as part of the Carbineers. I drew my tools from my cloak pocket, inserted them in the lock of the huge door, and I was soon on my way down the corridor.
The light was dimmer in my parents’ room at night it seemed, though I could still make them out. Each of course was lying in their cot. They couldn’t move. They couldn’t speak. That was okay. I planned on doing the talking.
I stood between the cots because I wanted to address them at the same time. I didn’t know where the words came from, I really didn’t. But I was soon pouring out my heart to them, complaining of wretched injustice, poor Quentin, fiendish jabbits, walls of blood, lost brothers, insufferable Council members like Jurik Krone, vile Outliers, and Wormwood simply going mad on me. I told them I wanted them back. No, I needed them to come back to me. I was all alone. Then I ran completely out of words and just stood there, tears running down my cheeks as I stared at the two Wugs who had brought me into Wormwood and who had not uttered a word or moved a muscle for over two sessions.
A sliver later I was rubbing my eyes because I could not believe what I was seeing. My father’s cot was vibrating. No, my father was vibrating. In fact, he was shaking so hard that I was afraid he would simply fly apart. When I looked at my mother, the exact same thing was occurring to her. I rushed forward to seize them, to stop whatever was happening to them.
I had to leap back to avoid being killed.
Towers of fire had sprouted from both cots at the same time. They rose together to the ceiling and then started to swirl in a circular motion, like a fierce, fiery funnel of wind trying to escape the narrow confines of whatever was trapping it.
I leapt farther back as the flames threatened to engulf the room, and slammed against the hard wall. My eyes were so wide I felt as if there was no space left on my face to contain them. I screamed. The flames leapt higher. I looked around the room for something to put out the fire. There was a pitcher of water on a stand against the wall. I grabbed it and hurled the liquid against the inferno. It splashed back in my face, repelled by the flames, though I couldn’t imagine how.
I screamed, “Mum! Dad!”
They had to be burned to nothing by now, the heat was so intense. But still, I desperately looked around for something, anything, to use to defeat the flames. There was a stack of sheets on another table. I wrapped them in my arms, bent to the floor and soaked them in the spilled water from the pitcher.
I charged the twin maelstroms of fire, whirling the cloths that were now heavy with water. I was going to beat the fire out and save my parents. Or what was left of them.
I got no closer than a foot and a half when I was again thrown back toward the wall. I put out my hands to cushion the collision and they took most of the brunt of it, although my shoulder slammed into the hard wall an instant later. I slid down, dazed and sick to my stomach. As I staggered back up, it happened.
And all I could do was watch.
From out of the flames rose my parents. Into the air, up to the ceiling. They were not burned. They were not hurt in any way that I could see. As I looked at their faces, I fell back stunned. Their eyes were open. They seemed to be awake even as the flames devoured them.
I screamed at them again, trying to get them to notice me, but they never looked at me. It was as though I didn’t even exist to them.
And then came a blast of wind and a shriek that was so loud I covered my ringing ears. In a blink of my eyes, they were gone. So were the flames.
I sat there slumped against the wall and stared at two empty cots that were not damaged in any way.
And yet my parents were gone.
I rose on legs that did not feel strong enough to hold my weight. I braced myself with a hand against the wall. My shoulder ached from where I had hit it. My hands were cut and bruised and my face and hair were wet with the water from the pitcher. The doused sheets lay on the floor. All of that had happened. But it was as though the fire had never occurred. I would have doubted that any of it had taken place, except for the fact that I was now alone in the room.
I looked to the ceiling, expecting to see a hole there where my parents had escaped. But it was still simply a ceiling and completely intact.
I bent over and sucked in long breaths. The room did not even smell of smoke. The fresh air quickly replenished my lungs. I kept a hand on the wall as I staggered over to the door, pulled it open and raced down the hall with renewed energy.
I thought I might see my parents soaring through the air and, with the aid of Destin, I could fly with them to wherever they were going.
I reached the front double doors, wrenched one open and hurtled outside. I looked to the sky, desperately hoping to catch a glimpse of them. Then something grabbed me and slammed me down to the ground.
I had no idea how long I had been in my parents’ room, but first light was weakly managing to break through the clouds and the rain. Its dim illumination reflected off the raindrops, making them seem dirty, misshapen.
Then I saw that hulking idiot Non standing there. He was the one who had grabbed me, pushed me down, cost me any chance of following my parents. Waves of rage swept over me, even as Non looked down at me, a malicious grin spreading over his face.
He glittered in the rain, for he was wearing a metal breastplate. Over his shoulder was a long morta. In his belt was a short morta and a dagger. He must have been on patrol.
“Caught you, didn’t I? Breaking into the Care. Valhall for you, female. That’ll teach you not to break rules.”
I tried to get up and he pushed me back down.
“You’ll stand when I say you can and not before.” He touched the barrel of his morta. “Official Council business, I’m on. Lucky for me I came round here to see that things were okay. What, were you stealing from the sick Wugs in there?”
“You idiot,” I screamed. “Get out of my way.”
I jumped to my feet and he tried to slam me back down.
That was a mistake. An enormous one on his part.
When I hit him with my fist, I felt the breastplate bend and then crack under my blow. The next instant, Non toppled to the dirt. I looked down at my hand. It was swollen and bleeding. The impact had carried all the way up my arm to my shoulder and borne with it searing pain. But it was worth it, to unleash my rage, because I couldn’t contain it any longer.
Yet there was Non lying on the ground. He was injured, perhaps dead even. I turned and ran. And then I took a few steps and my feet lifted off the ground and I was flying. I did not really intend this, it just happened. The winds buffeted me but I kept on my straight course through sheer will.