Revolution - Jennifer Donnelly [156]
85
Back through the church.
Back through the crypt.
Back to the grave.
Amadé half drags, half carries me down the stone steps, through the tunnels, past the sad and silent dead.
We stumble on, with just the light of a lantern we stole from the church, down white stone halls, farther into the catacombs, deeper underground. Until finally he stops and eases me down, until I’m sitting on the ground, back against the wall. And he’s kneeling beside me.
“You have your light?” he asks me.
“Yeah.” It’s inside my boot. I take it out. I turn it on. The beam is so dim.
“I’ll come back with help. As soon as I’m able. The woman, she can fix you.”
I nod, but I don’t believe him. And neither does he.
“If they question you, say I had a pistol,” I tell him. “Say I held it to your back. That you broke free as soon as you could.”
“It will never work. They’ll throw me in prison.”
“It will work. It does work, Amadé. So do tritones and A minor. Don’t forget that. Jimmy Page needs you. The world won’t be the same without ‘Stairway.’ ” I lean forward, groaning with pain, and kiss his cheek. “Thank you,” I tell him, collapsing back against the wall.
He picks up his lantern, as if to go, then puts it down again.
“I wrote music today. Did you know that?” he says. “It was good. Better than anything I’ve ever done. It’s going to be a concerto. In A minor. I wrote it because of the fireworks. Because they gave light. And hope. Because they were impossible.”
“The Fireworks Concerto,” I whisper, smiling.
“Why did you do this thing?” he says brokenly. His eyes are bright with tears. “Why did you give your life for nothing? The boy will die. You said so yourself. Now you will, too. And likely myself as well. If the guards get hold of me, I am a dead man. And for what? What did you change? The light you made is snuffed out. Hope is trampled upon. This wretched world goes on, as stupid and brutal tomorrow as it was today.”
I know those words. Orléans said them to Alex and she wrote them down. In her last entry. With her last breath.
I’m tired, so tired. And weak. And everything’s fading. But suddenly I’m laughing. I can’t help it. Because I understand now. I know what Alex wanted to tell me. I know the answer. I know how her diary ends. Not with a smear of blood, not with death.
“Oh, dead man, you’re dead wrong,” I tell him. “The world goes on stupid and brutal, but I do not. Can’t you see? I do not.”
PARADISE
The Guide and I into that hidden road
Now entered, to return to the bright world;
And without care of having any rest
We mounted up, he first and I the second,
Till I beheld through a round aperture
Some of the beauteous things Heaven doth bear;
Thence we came forth to rebehold the stars.
—DANTE
86
“Andi. Andi, wake up.”
I hear a voice. It’s far away.
“Come on, Andi, wake up.”
I want to, but I don’t know how.
“Come back. Please.”
I’m lying in the dark. I’m tired. My head hurts. A lot.
“Please, Andi. For me.”
I take a deep breath. And open my eyes.
“Virgil.”
“God, you had me scared.”
“Virgil, I was gone.”
“Yeah, I know you were.”
“No, really gone,” I say, in a raspy voice. “In the eighteenth century. In Paris. I … I was running. Trying to find you. But I couldn’t. And I fell. And some guys … they were at the beach … they helped me. And we came out in Paris, but not this Paris. Another one. From 1795.”
He looks really worried. He shines the light all around my face, then touches my head.
“Your forehead’s bleeding,” he says. “You must’ve knocked yourself out. You’ve been dreaming or hallucinating. Something.”
“I was there, Virgil. I was.”
“Uh-huh. Was the tin man with you?”
“It was real! I swear it was!” I say, a little hysterically.
“All right, calm down. We’ve got to get out of Oz. The flying monkeys are still around and they’re not too fond of boys from the banlieues.” He tries to get me on my feet. “Can you stand?”
I try to. I try to sit up but it hurts too much. Virgil opens my jacket, then winces. There’s a gash across the lower part of my rib cage. It’s bleeding,