You can’t do this alone, he said again. He wasn’t wrong, but I also understood now that there was a price for victory here, as everywhere.
And the price was too high. She meant it to be too high.
Follow, I said. Wait five minutes, and follow. If I’m dead, do what you can.
I didn’t bother to argue with either one of them. I just lifted my body and lunged inside, slamming the opening shut behind me and locking it with a twist of my will. He could force it, but it would take time.
I didn’t think there was much left.
When I turned back, I faced an organic sweep of cool, iridescent walls—not quite stone, not quite bone, not quite nacreous. It curved as it followed the outer shape of the dome, and I ran lightly along the path, looking for what I knew I would find.
I rounded the curve and found Isabel.
“Ibby?”
I slowed my steps, my metal left hand touching the outer wall, and stared at her with the intensity I reserved for those I loved, and for enemies. I wasn’t sure which she was now. Or whether she was still both.
Isabel was still, in body, a chubby little girl, but she had put aside the behavior of a child. She stood very still, very alert, watching my approach. Behind her were three other children, each older than she was. They were dressed the same, all in that durable camouflage material, which I now realized had the same properties that Luis had used in his efforts to conceal us; the material mimicked its surroundings, and now it was a shimmering ivory, like silk.
“Ibby,” I said. I stopped and faced her, just as still as she was. “I’ve come to take you home, Ibby.”
She didn’t answer. None of them did. They just watched me with alert, angry eyes.
“Isabel, I don’t want to fight you. I want to take you home.”
Isabel slowly shook her head. “This is my home.”
“No. Your home is with your uncle Luis.” And me, I wanted to say, but didn’t dare. “He’s waiting for you. He’s missed you so badly. You remember your uncle, don’t you?”
Her dark eyes flickered for a moment, and I knew she was remembering. What she might remember was another question; if Pearl had succeeded in altering the girl’s perceptions, her memories, she might be reliving imaginary trauma—or real ones. Pearl had manipulated these children, tried to use their familial feelings to raise barriers and drive hatreds—but she could only manipulate, not program. That left them vulnerable to the same appeals.
“Uncle Luis is dead,” Ibby said. “You killed him. It was horrible.”
“She’s lying to you,” I said. Not that I hadn’t almost gotten him killed on many occasions, but it was probably not the best time to parse the dynamics of that relationship. “Ibby, the lady who tells you these things, she isn’t your friend. And she lies. She wants to use you, all of you. She doesn’t care what happens to you.”
Isabel was no fool, and I saw her consider that. The children behind her, however, didn’t have our history together. Or, perhaps, the same flexibility of mind.
“You’re the liar! You’re the evil one!” one of them shouted, and clapped his hands together.
A hammer of air forced itself down the narrow hallway, hit me, and slammed me backward to the floor with such violence I saw black swarms of stars, and felt myself begin to disconnect from this world. I fought back, panting, and rolled to my side to get up.
The Weather Warden child hit me again, harder, sending me face- first into the wall. I slid down it, almost senseless, and sensed Isabel stepping forward. The assault stopped, mainly because the Weather Warden—the same boy who’d almost killed us in the chasm, perhaps?—couldn’t strike with Isabel in the way.
Isabel called fire into her hand. It came in a blue-white burst of energy, flickering red at the edges, and echoed eerily in her eyes as she advanced toward me.
“You wanted them dead,” she said. “My parents. All our parents. You killed Uncle Luis. You want to kill me and my friends. You want to kill the lady.”
Only one of those things was true, but it was the critical one; I did want to kill the lady. And however it had happened, Manny and Angela Rocha had died; Pearl could twist the facts to suit her cause, and it would be useless for me to try to deny them.
But Luis . . . I could prove she was lying about Luis.
“Stop,” I said, or tried to say; there was blood in my mouth, and I wasn’t sure that I had actually spoken at all. The second blow had been so hard that I couldn’t get my limbs to move, other than uncoordinated scrabbles. “He’s alive.” That sounded almost clear. “Your uncle is alive.”
“Liar,” Ibby said. “I saw you kill him. The lady showed me—you hurt him, you hurt him so bad he died. And now you’re going to burn, just like you burned him.”
She pulled her hand back.
I flung out a hand in useless denial . . . and felt a surge of horror at what had been done to Ibby. To all these children. She’d watched someone—even if it had not been Luis in truth—burn. Whether that had been illusion or reality, it was traumatic enough to leave unendurable scars.
In the instant before she launched the fire at me, I shouted, “Ibby, think! I’m like your uncle! I can’t use fire!”
Ibby blinked. She stayed there, poised on the edge of violence, fire flickering and hissing in her small, chubby hand.
“Your uncle is an Earth Warden,” I panted. “I share his power. I am an Earth Warden. I couldn’t burn him, even if I wanted to, do you understand? And I never would, Ibby. I love him, just as I love you.”
It was much for a child her age to understand, but she’d been forced to things far beyond her normal understanding already. She understood the nature of power because of what Pearl had already taught her.
Ibby quenched the fireball with a clench of her fist, leaving behind a smear of acrid smoke on the air. She looked at me with wide, lost eyes, frowning.
“But I saw,” she said. “I saw you do it. I know you did it.”
Children are literal. And Pearl had counted on that. “No, my dear,” I said softly, and heard the grief and tenderness in my voice. “I didn’t. And I won’t hurt him, or you. You have my promise.”
I felt the air move behind me, a cool breeze stirring my hair, and heard running, booted feet.
And then Luis said, “Ibby?”
In the first instant there was shock, then fear. She’d seen him die. This required a wrenching adjustment of her worldview, something difficult and painful.
Then I saw delight dawn. Her eyes rounded, and so did her perfect little rosebud of a mouth, and in that single moment, she seemed the child she had been. “Tío Luis?” Her voice was shaking and uncertain.
He lowered himself to one knee. “I’m here, mija. I’m right here.”
She took a step forward, then shook her head, violently, and backed away, into the safety of the other children. “No,” she said. “No, it’s a trick. You’re playing a trick.”
Luis didn’t move, not even a muscle. He didn’t even glance at me. “Mija, it’s no trick. I’m here to take you home. You want to go home, don’t you? I know you didn’t want to leave us. I know they made you go. It’s not your fault. None of this is your fault.”
She pulled in a trembling breath, and I saw tears glitter in her dark eyes. So young. So fragile.
“Isabel,” Luis whispered. “I love you. Please come home.”
“No,” said the Weather Warden boy, the one who’d slammed me into the walls. He was cold and utterly controlled, and he grabbed Ibby’s shoulder as she started to move toward us. “She’s not going anywhere. You’re not going to hurt her anymore.”